Sins of the Puppet Master
by Kommissar Mandar
Summary: "I never said nothing great comes out of Spinner's End...Just nothing good."
1. The Betrothal

**"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." -Samuel Johnson**

"_Severus?"_

"_Yes?"_

"_What does it feel like...to kill?"_

_I inhaled deeply, thinking back to the thunderous BANG, the smell of sulfur, the forming scream that was blasted out of his throat before it had a chance to escape his lips, and the blood...oh the blood that painted the walls. I turned toward the window, absently gazing over the waves of the Pacific Ocean, and found the words to answer._

"_Mandarys, what controls the waves of the ocean?"_

"_The moon.", she flatly replies._

"_And what controls the moon?"_

_Her brows furrow in bemusement at the question._

"_The Earth's orbit?"_

"_Yes, and what controls the Earth's orbit?"_

"_The sun."_

"_Very good. Now, what controls the universe?"_

_She goes silent, I can feel her jaw dropping against my chest, looking for words."_

"_I don't know."_

"_I don't either. Nobody does, really. Some may call it God, some may call it Fate, or perhaps it's nothing at all, and we're all just riding on a chaotic tide of rock and flame to nowhere. I can tell you this, though; when you take the life of another human being, it's like for a single moment...you hold all that power, all that control, in your hands. For a moment, it doesn't matter how small you are, how insignificant you feel, what your shortcomings are, how many times you've been beaten, how many games you've lost, how many things you've failed at, how many of your dreams have been broken...because in that moment...you are a God."_

"_You're funny, Sev."_

_I feel her mouth curl into a smile against me as she nuzzles my chest. I tighten my arms around her small frame, bringing her head under my chin. I gently plant a kiss on the top of her head. _

"_Goodnight, Baby Sis. I love you."_

"_I love you too, Sev."_

_I feel her breathing become more rhythmic as the sound of the sea makes me do the same._

**-Dusseldorf, Germany 1953-**

"Vorsätzliche Hure! Are you aware at all of the gravity of the situation!? Do you have any respect, regard, or even THOUGHT for this family?"

Eileen Prince ignored the insult and kept her eyes transfixed on the snow slowly building up on the window. "I always have, father. Even considering the course your...career took." She ran her fingers through her waist-length, midnight black hair. "Father, he's my first cousin -

"And the last of our line! The last Prince of marrying age! Severus LXVIII is a fine, wealthy, Pure-Blood wizard who will care for your every need until the end of your days. Where is the problem here? What more could you want?"

"Happiness, Independence, the freedom to marry a man of my own choosing, preferably one who is not related to me."

"You know our history, Eileen. You know the way we marry. We have been marrying cousin to cousin, uncle to niece, and brother to sister since the days of Severus The Conqueror. We are, and will remain, the Purest-Blooded and most powerful family in the wizarding world."

"Your mind is lost in the ages past, father.", she sighed. "You are delusional. The most powerful family in the wizarding world? Who? All three or four of us? And what power? You lost your last ally in 1945."

Her father's voice took on a deep, smooth, malicious tone, like silk soaked in acid, as it always did when he was on the edge of rage.

"WE lost our last ally, Eileen. WE did.", He began to stroke his golden-blonde beard and contemplate silently for a moment. "Do you remember what the mystic said?"

"You mean the tea leaf reading quack who will get your dead grandmother on the horn for only 150 galleons?", Eileen had little and less respect for the art of divination.

"Für die Liebe von Merlin! ENOUGH of your goddamned quips, child! You remember what she said. You remember her words. "Your Prince shall be THE prince. Your offspring will be the force that restores our bloodline back to glory. The son you bear will be Severus The Conqueror reborn. He will wield a wand made of steel and our family will be delivered back to our position of highest power."

"There has never been a wand crafted from steel, I've researched it. Steel has no magical properties, it wouldn't make an iota of sense to craft a wand from steel. Severus The Conqueror is certainly going to look the fool on this go-around, toting around a wand that's utterly use-AUUGH!"

For a scrawny, middle-aged doctor, he hit with the force of a man twice his size. Eileen was knocked to the floor, a trickle of blood escaping the corner of her mouth. He loomed over her, his face twisted in rage.

"Do NOT mock me, child. This is not a negotiation. Three weeks from today you will be wedded to Severus LXVIII. You will be graceful, courteous, and you will perform your duties as a bride come the wedding night. This conversation is over."

"It is NOT!" His eyes widened in shock, as it was remarkably rare for his daughter to talk back after a good thrashing.

"Do you not realize that this is BARBARIC! It is the year 1953, not 1453! There are no more conquerors or kings in the wizarding world! There are no more knights to gallivant around and win the hearts of fair princesses, and now there will be no more Princes either. And what does it matter!? That age has passed! That chapter of history has long since closed. There is neither glamor nor honor in the thrice-be-damned forced coupling of two blood relatives anymore, just the potential for more children to die or come into this world misshapen because we're so FUCKING inbred! How, father? How can you be so content to sell the soul of your only daughter for this Merlin forsaken pipe dream? How can you stand there and be proud of the fact that in three weeks, your child will be a BREEDING-SOW!?", She screamed as her voice cracked and the tears streamed down her cheeks, trembling half with rage and half with hysteria.

"It seems we will not see eye-to-eye on this.", he spoke with lazy resignation. "Nonetheless, these are the events that shall come to pass. The hand of fate holds us all in its icy grasp. You cannot change what is written in the stars."

"Bullshit. WE are that hand, father. You have been shown time and time again that it is not the heavens that weave a man's destiny, it is the man himself. The war has been the latest illustration of that fact." His eyes immediately dropped to the ground, as if by reflex, at the mention of the war.

"How do you propose to change you fate, child?"

"I'm leaving."

"Where will you go?"

"England, where I can freely show my face and not worry about someone recognizing me as _Dr. Prince's _daughter." She squeezed all the disdain she could muster into the mention of his name. "I'm still remembered at Hogwarts, Professor Slughorn could find me work, I was his best potion brewer."

A sinister grin spread across his face, so wide it looked as if his face might split in two. "I don't suppose you're as good a brewer as I am.", He chuckled.

A look of horror crossed with disgust twisted Eileen's features. "How the fuck can you laugh at that, you sadistic _pig_? I wouldn't _want_ to be as good as you, if it meant doing the things you've done."

"Oh Eileen, one day you will learn that nothing great was ever attained without sacrifice. Perhaps the lesson will sink in when you're bearing your son."

"Did you not hear me, father? I'm leaving. I'm done. I want no part in this family and I will not be used as a pawn in a game that was lost centuries ago."

His face took on a look of icy calm that sent a pang of fear to pierce her heart, and his hand delved into his pocket. Eileen rose to her feet and smoothed her skirts.

"I'm-I'm going upstairs now, to gather my things."

He was on her before her foot hit the ground, and a scream would have escaped her lips, had his cold, slender hand not clamped around her nose and mouth. With his other hand he found the vein, and drove the needle inside. It took not half a second before her limbs failed her, and she crumpled to the ground like a twisted, grotesque rag doll. _You're right, father, you always were the better brewer._

He loomed over her once more. "We can do this two ways, child. You can be a good girl, walk down the aisle and end your days as a maiden in 3 weeks, or, you can enjoy the feeling of being drugged and chained to your bed while you get to know my taser until you change your mind. You haven't a dime to your name, girl, nor as many friends as you think you have. And if in the throws of lunacy you decide to run away, I will find you." With a sinister grin he added, "You know that no one under my..._care_ slips through my fingers."

Eileen attempted to prop herself up on her arms, but they slipped out from underneath her, as useless as wet parchment. With a painful jolt to her neck, she felt her father seize her by her long, dark hair. She clenched her teeth to the point of near shattering as she heard the _screeeeeeee_ sound that her body being dragged along the glossy, wood floor made.

With a harsh tug, he dragged his daughter up the stairway leading to her room. Eileen mused as each step dealt her a rough knock on the head, _13 steps...same number as the gallows. _She could almost laugh, had she not so badly wanted to scream. When they reached the second floor of the estate, her father had the decency to slide his arms underneath her and lift her from the ground. He pushed the door of her room open with his foot and unceremoniously tossed her onto the bed.

"Your room will be charmed shut and locked until morning. If you try anything foolish, I will know. Sleep well, princess."

With a light slam, the door was shut and Eileen was left to process thought after unpleasant thought that raced through her pounding head. It wasn't until about an hour later that movement returned to her limbs. Stacking some pillows against the headboard of her bed, she propped herself up and absently surveyed her bedroom.

The décor of her room was a motley of childhood memories frozen in time, framed by pale pink wallpaper. On the closet door to her left hung moth-eaten Hogwarts robes, a dark green tie with thin, silver stripes draped over the shoulders. Next to the closet was a small display table on which several Gobstone tournament trophies stood. Against the far wall stood a radio and a tall dresser whose surface was home to five porcelain figurines.

Looking at the figurines never failed to evoke a pang of nostalgia within her. They were a Prince family heirloom that had been passed down to her on her 7th birthday, back when life was brighter, and all it took was a simple gift to bring her joy. She observed each of the figures from left to right: A tall, dark-haired prince dressed entirely in black, a chestnut haired princess who held a crystal ball in her cupped hands, a magnificent unicorn with a flowing main of every color that existed in the rainbow, a gallant knight whose armor was made entirely of glittering, solid gold, and lastly, a fair-haired blacksmith, who was hammering away at a sword on a tiny little porcelain anvil.

Her mother used to tell her that the figures would come to life when she was sleeping; that they would throw little parties and gallivant around the room whilst she was tucked warm in her bed, and should she awake, they would run right back into their original positions, quick as lightning, that she may never notice. It was for this reason that Eileen had dubbed the painted porcelain troupe the "night crew." She recalled the hours and hours she staved off sleep, fighting a losing battle against heavy eyelids, just for a chance to catch a glimpse of their after-dark affairs. Of course, the night crew remained stationary, but they were her most precious possessions nonetheless.

Turning over in her bed, she faced a mahogany nightstand where an ornate, jade and ivory music box stood. She reached over and wound it up several times. A little door opened at the top, and two little dancers, an elegantly dressed man and woman, ascended and began to twirl around to a simplified, high pitched version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No. 36.

Resting her head and relaxing her body, she observed the tiny waltz. _Maybe it won't be so bad...maybe he's gentle and kind. Perhaps, against all odds, I'll even come to love him._ As optimistic as the thought was however, the gnawing sense of doubt in the pit of her stomach refused to let her believe it._  
><em>


	2. Oink! Oink! Goes the Human Race

_**"**There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company,  
>than a good marriage." -Martin Luther<strong>**_

"_Severus?"_

"_Yes?"_

"_Have you ever wanted to make someone happy?"_

_The high-noon sunlight gives her eyes the appearance of molten emeralds, and I find them difficult to look into. There is an unnerving quality to her gaze, and as paranoid and cliché as it sounds, I feel as if she can see right through me. The green orbs leave me feeling naked and exposed, weighing me, judging me. Turning toward the Quidditch pitch, I gather my thoughts, and then face her once more._

_I reach out and tuck loose strands of blood-red hair behind her ear. "No."_

_She flinches backward, a puzzled grimace crinkling her nose. "Why not?"_

_I motion for her to come closer to me, and she obeys. She gasps in surprise as I take her in my arms and perch my chin atop her head._

"_Can anyone ever really _make_ anybody else happy? Is that the mortgage which we pay for this life on Earth? To sacrifice ourselves for another person's happiness? Is it not possible for a man to live without buying into the guise of altruism?"_

"_Sev, what are you talking about?", I feel her squirm._

"_Lil...people are pigs. Fat. Filthy. Greedy. Swine. There is no such thing as a random act of kindness. Selflessness does not exist. Where the naïve and innocent see charity, those who have seen man's unmasked ugliness know there is an ulterior, self-serving motive behind every act. If I were to, out of the blue, give you an expensive gift tomorrow, how would you react?"_

"_I-I would be grateful. I'd want to return the kindness somehow."_

"_Exactly. Your moral code wouldn't allow you to do otherwise. You are now unwillingly indebted to me, and I could continue these random acts of kindness to increase that debt. I could be doing this to inflate my own ego, I could be doing this to appear the gentleman in front of my friends, I could be doing this to snatch a piece of what's under your skirts-"_

"_Sev!"_

"_However! No matter the specific reason, my actions are entirely self-motivated. It's about what _I_ want, not you. My happiness, not yours. I'm only gratifying my own emotional greed."_

_She sighed a long sigh and her shoulders fell. It was as if another little piece of the bubble she lived in had slowly deflated. I often had that effect on her._

"_Well, Sev, are _you_ a pig?"_

_I run my fingernails down the length of her spine. "No, baby, I'm the butcher." I laugh softly into her crimson locks._

_She's silent for a time. "Sev, where did you say your parents were on vacation to again?"_

_In the distance, a thestral takes flight._

…_..._

"You just need one last thing."

Dr. Severus Prince LXVI approached his daughter, holding the tiara reverently with both hands. You would have never known that it was over 1,000 years old, the way it sparkled in the dim lighting. A large emerald was set in the center of the precious silver, flanked by two embossed scorpions, the Prince family sigil.

He gently placed the tiara on top of Eileen's shimmering, ebony hair. "There," he cooed, "a perfect princess." Upon examining her reflection in the mirror, Eileen truly couldn't argue. She donned a heavily antiquated, though no less stunning gown of black and forest green. The edges of the fabric were lined with a silky material, on which little green scorpions were embroidered. Around her neck hung an elaborate emerald necklace. Her hair was an artful tumble of curls inlaid with little white flowers.

She looked the part of a bride in dress, to be sure, but her sullen expression wouldn't look out of place on a death row inmate. Despite the dread gnawing at her insides, she would voice no argument. Open dissent would be about as fruitful as pissing in the wind at this point. Her fate had been decided and it's cold, cruel hand would yield no mercy.

Her train of thought was derailed by long-fingered hands embracing her shoulders. "You wear that dress as beautifully as mother did. She did fill out the front better, but you look to be a vision of loveliness nonetheless." He kissed her cheek.

"Uh...thank you, father. That means a lot to me."

"Please, princess, do try and smile, you want to look perfect for your future husband, don't you?"

"I'll get into character when it comes time for me to play my part in this dog and pony show."

His hands tightened around her shoulders to the point where his fingernails were close to breaking the skin. "Don't fuck this up, Eileen. Now!, he said, with a complete 180 degree change of tone, let's get on with the happiest day of your life." Though expected, she was still revolted by his beaming smile. Taking her by the arm, he led her towards the front door, and they apparrated to the residence of Severus LXVIII.

Cousin Severus lived on the outskirts of Frankfurt, in a home that could be described as somewhere between upper-middle class and mildly wealthy. The living room was large and presentable enough to hold the wedding ceremony in, especially considering there would only be 12 or so guests. Dr. Prince took a moment to examine himself in a small hand mirror, primped his golden hair, and then led his daughter up the walkway and knocked on her future husband's door.

"Jenny, Jenny, Jenny, I'm gonna make you mine!", her father exclaimed, beaming with outstretched arms.

"Sevvy, baby! Eileen! Willkommen! Come on inside!" A hand bearing overly-long, chintzy red nails ushered them inside.

Her father lifted Aunt Jaenarys by the waist and spun her around while she giggled and squealed like an overgrown schoolgirl. "Oh Sevvy, I couldn't be happier to see you, you handsome devil! I swear, you look skinnier every time I see you. _You_ lose the weight and _I_ find it, that must be how it works."

"Nonsense!, her father said, loosening her grip on her so as to survey the gaudily dressed woman. You're as beautiful as you were since you were 18! Besides, I like a woman who has some meat on her bones.", he gave his sister a firm pinch on the behind.

"Oh! You dog!," she laughed. "Whatever shall I do with my naughty, naughty baby brother?", she said mock-chidingly. And you! Eileen! Get over here and give your old, fat aunt a hug!"

Between her Aunt's ample bosom and the noxious, choking fumes of at least an entire bottle of perfume on her skin, Eileen silently prayed she would asphyxiate before the ceremony. Sadly, she did not get her wish. "Now you come with me right upstairs, sweetling, with it being bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her wedding dress and all that."

She was whisked up the foyer stairs to a room at the end of the hall, where another large, opulent mirror and two female..._thralls_ stood. Their empty, lifeless stares drank her in with the vaguest understanding. A trickle of drool escaped one's lips and she dropped her eyes in discomfort. The Prince family, in their never-ending quest to one-up the entire wizarding world, did not believe in house-elves. Instead, they shelled out thousands of galleons for a thrall or two. Thralls were muggles typically abducted from 3rd world countries, who were bred and raised for servitude. To ensure their unconditional obedience, thralls were partially lobotomized, as well as having their vocal cords removed. Because of this, they had little more than the mental capacity to feed themselves, use the toilet, and perform the basic household tasks which they were assigned.

Looking up again, Eileen noticed something unnerving about the thrall which the family simply called J. J's hair was painted an unnatural shade of vibrant red, and her breasts were disproportionately large compared to the rest of her body. It wasn't uncommon to keep a thrall as a bed slave. They were spayed or castrated upon sale and trained not to resist the touch of their masters. It made her wonder...until Aunt Jenny began assaulting her face with brushes and powder puffs to complete the finishing touches on her makeup.

"Oh! Darling! Your cousin Sevvy is just going to eat you up! He's been waiting for this day for so long."

"Has he, Aunt Jenny?", she replied conversationally.

"Why of course! You are just the prettiest little young thing in this family!", she said in a voice that could give cake diabetes.

"I'm the only little young thing in this family."

For a split second a slight grimace tainted her Aunt's overly-happy features, as if it were a pang of jealousy. "Well, dearest, you and my darling son will get to remedying that problem tonight, now won't you?"

_Touche. _ "I-I suppose we will, Aunt Jenny. I look forward to it.", she replied robotically.

The thralls smoothed her dress and took care of any loose hairs on her while Aunt Jenny continued plastering her face with cosmetics and dousing her in perfume. She even lifted her skirts to dab a bit above her womanhood. When all the poking and prodding was done it was finally time to begin the ceremony. Aunt Jenny led her back down the stairs to the foyer, where her father stood outside the entrance to the living room, ready to take her by the arm and lead her down the aisle.

The tune of _Here Comes the Bride_ struck her like a death knell. Arm-in-arm, she and her father met the beaming glances of a select few Lestranges, Blacks, and Malfoys, as well as toothless, chain-smoking great grandma Adealys Prince, and even Maximillian and Kristella Studworth, the richest pure-blood family in the entire wizarding world. Step by step, the ebony clad bride made her way down the aisle. When her hands began to shake halfway to the alter, her father paid no mind. A few moments later, she was standing face-to-face with cousin Severus.

If there was one way to slingshot a jerk right into shitlord territory, put a crown on his head. A grin cleaved his face from ear to earringed ear. His white-blonde hair framed his ice blue eyes in an artful mess about his smug visage. The golden, emerald bedecked crown of Severus The Conqueror served to complete the picture.

"My Queen!, he genuflected and kissed her hand, "You look absolutely radiant."

"I am pleased you find me so, m'Lord.", Eileen gave a small curtsy. As ridiculous as the titles and customs seemed to her, in typical Prince fashion, it was expected that tradition be upheld.

The Magistrate cleared his throat. "Shall we proceed?"

"By all means.", cousin Severus replied, with a sickly sweet smile.

"Who presents this woman?"

"I do.", Her father bowed. Cousin Severus took her hands in his. His touch was cold. He drew her nearer to him, and as he did this, the right sleeve of his black and green ceremonial robes slipped upward, revealing his forearm. She would have thought nothing of it, had it not been for the veins. Their purplish-red hue was screamingly vibrant against the contrast of his pale skin. They snaked up his arm, practically protruding through the skin in a grotesque, unnatural fashion. Cousin Severus, quickly realizing he was...exposed, hurriedly tugged down his sleeve, his face flushing in what looked to be an expression that was half embarrassment and half worry.

"My good fellows, we are gathered here today to join Severus Prince, the 68th of his name, into the sacred union of matrimony with Eileen Prince, daughter of Dr. Severus Prince, the 66th of his name. Let us rejoice in the coming together of two people whose hearts and spirits are entwined as one. You are adding to your life not only the affection of each other, but also the companionship and blessing of a deep trust as well. You are agreeing to share strength, responsibilities and love. Love is cultivating flexibility, patience, and understanding. Love is having the capacity to forgive and forget. Love is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.

_Love is the tepid hands of your cousin touching you in places you'd rather not think about, _she thought bitterly. The Magistrate continued to drone on about the delights of everlasting love, two souls joining as one and something about quivers full of children. She broke out of her bored daze when it came time to make the vows.

"Do you, Severus Prince LXVIII, take Eileen Prince to be your lawful wedded wife? Do you promise to love, honor, cherish, and protect her, as long as you live?"

"I do."

"Do you, Eileen Prince, take Severus Prince LXVIII to be your lawful wedded husband? Do you promise to love, honor, cherish, and obey him, as long as you live?"

"I do.", she droned.

"Then by my divine right, I now pronounce you man and wife.", with a flick of his wand shiny, golden rings appeared on each of their respective thumbs. _That's right, _she remembered, _thumbs. To denote an inter-familial marriage. A proud, inter-familial marriage._ The combination of words brought the taste of bile to her tongue. She had just enough time to swallow back the vomit before the Magistrate uttered "You may now kiss the bride."

Cousin Severus wrapped his hands around her shoulders, bent down, and gave her a jarring, overly-forceful kiss, dipping her back slightly. Somewhere, in the deep, cavernous, oubliette of her heart, where a starry-eyed, summer-drunk teenage girl and a glimmer of hope still lived, the smallest voice cried out. _Maybe it will be like the fairy tales, the songs, the sitcoms. Perhaps that wholly unheralded, electrifying spark of enchantment from God-knows-where will somehow kindle and catch fire, and I will open my eyes and see him in new light. _Her eyes fluttered open. Nope. Nothing. His touch was beginning to feel more and more like an annoying, itchy garment that she wanted to tear off; the cheers and applause of the guests like insects buzzing in her ears.

Once again biting back bile, she forced the corners of her mouth into a hollow smile, and faced the gaping maw'd caricatures of powder faced aristocrats waiting to congratulate her. Aunt Jenny immediately ran up to cousin Severus and wildly embraced him, jumping up and down in an embarrassing fashion and yelling about how her baby was finally wed. Gimbiatti Lestrange greeted her with a wide smile, revealing a glimmering gold tooth and wished her many years of happiness. Jebediah Black shook her hand in his many-ringed one and shouted "Reines blut stolz!" Kristella Studworth, practically dripping diamonds, gracefully sauntered her way.

"My dear, sweet, Eileen! You look simply exquisite!", she proclaimed in her refined, American accent.

"Thank you, Lady Studworth. I'm so very honored that you and your husband traveled all the way from California just to be here."

"Oh, darling!", she purred, "It was no trouble at all, I assure you. We wouldn't miss the wedding of the last little Prince girl for the world."

"You-you are truly good people.", she let her face fall, honesty cracking through her voice. "You have helped us so much more than you know...these past years. I don't know how to thank you."

"There is no need, child. No need for that at all. We are the golden shield that protects you, always.", she softly spoke.

Eileen glanced towards her father, who was whispering something in Aunt Jenny's ear, causing her to blush and howl with laughter. The disdain in her glance could not be masked.

"We have done nothing to deserve that protection."

Lady Studworth frowned and cupped Eileen's cheek, genuine sadness reflecting in her blue-green eyes. She leaned forward to whisper in her ear.

"I know this all seems unfair, sweet child, but please, do try to understand. As cliché as it sounds, your father only wants the best for you. After all, he's in such an awful position right now. He's told me how he lies awake at night, wondering if they'll knock on his door and drag him off to Nuremberg. How you'll have no one to look out for you, that his legacy will be scattered to the ashes."

_He could have fled to South America with his partner. I'm a grown woman, I can look out for myself, and piss on his legacy. _She could have argued, but why bother? "I understand, Lady Studworth."

She smiled softly, "Everything will be okay, sweetheart. Now come on, they're starting dinner and presents in the next room." Lady Studworth took her gently by the hand and walked her to the table.

Eileen spent the next hour pushing around a procession of salads, schnitzels, and beef concoctions around on her plate, taking a bite here and there to soak up the copious amounts of champagne she was drinking. She was never much one for the drink, but she didn't see any other option, lest tonight be anything short of torture. Her father was celebrating in much the same fashion, blowing through champagne glasses and taking more enjoyment in rubbing his sister's back than any man ever should. Her new husband sat at the opposite end of the table, eying her in much the same way as he did his food.

When the meal and following cake was through, it came time to open the presents. One by one, she and cousin Severus were handed frilly, white and silver packages. Some of them contained jewelry for her, others nifty household odds and ends. She watched as her father handed a sparkling, golden wrapped and bowed package to cousin Severus. He tore off the wrapping paper eagerly, revealing an ornate, carved, cherry-wood box. Delicately undoing the clasp, he lifted the lid of the box only a sliver, so as to discreetly see what was inside. When he did, he closed it, and shot Dr. Prince a sly smile, as if they were sharing some private joke. Her father responded in kind, with a nod of his head and a wink. _Probably full of girly photos or something, the dirty bastards._

The thralls took the bounty of wedding gifts into the bride and groom's bedchamber, whilst the plates and tables were cleared away via magic. A knock was heard at the door.

"Ah! The band is here!", Squealed Aunt Jenny. She hurriedly led them into the room. Deftly, they set up harp and lute, piano and horn with graceful professionalism. Eileen downed another glass of champagne. Without wasting any time, the band broke into the beginning notes of the family's traditional song, _The Ballad of Severus The Conqueror. _

"I believe it is tradition that the newly wed Lord and Lady have the first dance."

She turned to find cousin Severus grinning at her with an outstretched hand.

"Of course, m'Lord.", she smiled, taking his hand. He led her to the center of the floor, as the leader of the band rang out the first verse.

_And what might have you?_

_The dread King said,_

_That I'd lay down my sword?_

_Bend your knee,_

_And bow to me,_

_Lest your kingdom face my horde._

He swept her to and fro across the dance floor with surprising grace as more and more couples joined in. Eileen laid her head against his shoulder in an attempt to feel some...tenderness, the slightest touch of warmth. The champagne had her feeling slightly swimmy in the head and had begun to rouse some life into her womanhood, but not enough yet to make the prospect of cousin Severus seem appealing.

_May it take a month, a year, or three,_

_Be it magic or steel-on-steel._

_Thy streets shall run red,_

_Thy blood shall be shed,_

_And what's left of you will kneel._

"So, Sev, what was in that box my father gave you?" _It may seem like prying, but after all, I am his_ _ wife now._

"That box? Oh, just a few things to have fun with.", he chuckled.

_And so he rode, and so he rode,_

_The King that knew no fear,_

_From North to South,_

_To East to West,_

_Until the death screams were heard by every ear._

"Fun?"

"Yes, _fun. _Do you like to have _fun, _Eileen?", He looked at her mischievously, poked at his forearm with two fingers, and winked. She had the feeling she was obviously missing the key point of whatever double-entendre he was going for.

"Fun...yes, I like to have fun. Do you remember when we were little and you used to play gobstones with me?"

He began cackling so hard that spittle misted her ear. "Gobstones! Gobstones!", he chortled, "Oh, you pretty little idiot. You're as innocent as a doveling, aren't you? HA!"

_The spears they flew, _

_The body count grew,_

_As his armies thundered in by flood,_

_And every voice that cried in protest,_

_Paid for that right in blood._

She didn't quite know how to respond to that. "I-I suppose it's been a long time since we've seen each other, sweet cousin. It seems we have much to catch up on."

"Well, dearest, we're married now. We'll have plenty of time for that, after I fuck you.", he punctuated the whispered statement by slowly licking her earlobe, finishing off with a graze of his teeth.

_And so he rode, and so he rode,_

_The King that knew no fear,_

_From North to South,_

_To East to West,_

_Until the death screams were heard by every ear._

Perhaps the gesture, in his own skewed mind, was intended to be endearing. To Eileen, it was too much. She abruptly ended the dance, wriggling her arms away from his grasp, and walked away from him as gracefully as she could. By the grace of god, a thrall was passing by with a tray of drinks. She grabbed a fluted pink concoction and greedily gulped it down. Doubling over, she sputtered and hacked, not expecting such a timid-hued drink to be so firesome. Her vision blurred as she grabbed the first seat she could and unceremoniously plopped down upon it. To her left, sat Gimbiatti Lestrange.

"Seniore Lestrange, would you happen to have a cigarette?", She asked, trying her best not to slur.

"My Lady, I am trying to quit."

"Pity, I'm trying to start."

Looking at her awkwardly, Gimbiatti handed her a cigarette, and lit it with a match.

"Thank you, Seniore."

Eileen Prince put her most gracious attempt forward to venture to the backyard. When she stepped out, she was greeted by the crisp, misted taste of mid-autumn air. She took a drag of her cigarette, it tasted like mint crossed with road mud. Watching the gossamer tendrils of smoke drift and dissipate brought her a slight wave of calm...which was unfortunately short-lived when the sound of moaning reached her ears. It was coming from the side of the house. _God be damned, father, you and Aunt Jenny just couldn't wait, could you? _Yet when she strode to the source of the sound, she didn't see a grotesque display of fornication between her father and aunt.

The thrall's garish, crimson painted hair flew about in a rhythmic mess in time with his thrusts. Stepping closer, she could hear the regular _thump-thump-thump_ of her head hitting the siding of the house. He had her serving dress pulled down about her waist, and the skirts hiked up to her hips. It was like watching a high-speed traffic accident unfold before her; as indecent as it was to look upon, a morbid fascination kept her eyes glued to the scene. The thrall's dead eyes looked into his face the entire time, showing only the barest iota of understanding as to what was happening. There was no resistance on her part. _She knows what she was bought for. _Eileen's stomach turned as she watched a rivulet of drool spill onto the thrall's exposed breast. She had seen enough.

"Severus!"

He turned to her startled, nearly dropping the thrall...and then continued the deed. "Just, give me a second.", he said breathlessly. "I'm almost there, sweetling."

There was not enough booze or nicotine in the world to curb the edge on what was happening right now. She just stood there, black eyes wide and blanker than the thrall's. She went to take a drag on her cigarette, but it had already ashed down to the filter. A thousand thoughts flew through her mind, each more violent that the last. _I am going to walk out of this house wearing a suit made out of my father's skin, drinking gin out of my aunt's thick, empty skull, and drive away in a car with your cock as a hood ornament. _

Cousin Severus, who had apparently reached satisfaction as his new wife contemplated 

what he would look like without a head, ordered the thrall to wash her hands and make sure the ice cube trays were filled. He turned to face Eileen.

"I'm sorry you had to see that, dearest, but well, you know how trigger happy the first soldier is.", he put his hands on her waist. "You have to get him knocked out before the real action sta-"

She slapped him so hard he nearly fell backwards. He stared at her, crown askew on his head, utterly dumbstruck, nursing his cheek.

"I don't believe this, I don't believe you-"

"Relax, Eileen! It was only a thrall. I was only getting ready for you."

"Getting ready for me!? Oh no, Severus. You get ready for a jog with a stretch, you get ready for a meal with an appetizer. You do not get ready for your wife with a WHORE!", she spat, black eyes flashing.

"Listen, sweets, I didn't think you'd take it so personally. It won't happen again, I promise.", he reached out to take her hand, which she violently slapped away.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!", she was breathing heavy, her teeth were bared. With a deep breath she tried to regain what was left of her composure. "So you promise it won't happen again? Well, that's just lovely. I'm so glad this little roadbump in our loving partnership has been smoothed out! After all, I'm just so LUCKY to have you! I couldn't be more proud to be the wife of Severus LXVIII! It's been my one dream since I was a little girl to be married to such an abhorrent, pompous, insufferable, dunderheaded, PIG!"

He wiped her spittle from his eyes. "Eileen..."

"Do you think I want to be here!? Do you think I wanted any of this? Did you think I wanted..._you_?"

He staggered back slightly, as if she had slapped him again. He was silent for a time. "No.", he met her eyes with stony resolve. "But, you have me, and I have you, and this can either be easy or hard."

Tears welled in her onxy eyes. She slowly walked backwards, nearly tripping on her heels. Turning away from him, she began to weep in earnest, and slowly tread back into the house.

Inside, the festivities continued. Gimbiatti Lestrange was beyond drunk and telling bawdy jokes to a group of howling men and blushing women. A few of the Malfoys got together and were shooting dice at a table in the corner. Towards the back of the room she could spy her father's face buried in tits the size of bolsters, which belonged to none other than Aunt Jenny. No one paid any mind to the crying bride in the middle of the room. Between the booziness caused by the drinks and her jumpy, restricted breathing, the circus of filth before her began to blur and spin. Stumbling, she found the stairs, and walked up to her new bedroom.

Slamming the door shut behind her, she quickly slipped out of her cumbersome bridal gown and threw it into a heap on the floor. Wearing nothing but her skivvies and jewels, she sank into a chair that was set by a vanity immediately to her right. In her reflection, she saw her eyes were raw from crying, her makeup, haphazard smears of red, purple, and black across her face. Her hair was a ratty mess of midnight curls sticking out every which way from underneath a tilted tiara. _A fitting image for this fairytale ending._

Looking into the mirror again, she spied something hanging from the canopy of the bed behind her. It was a lacy, red neglige, complete with feathers around the top. No doubt, this was the garb intended for her virginity to be served in tonight. A fresh wave of tears and rage came over her. She sprung to her feet, knocking the chair to the floor. In one fell swoop, she tore the offending garment off the hanger and began assaulting it. Piece by piece she tore it to shreds, lacy shrapnel and red feathers fluttering down around her. As if she could not be pushed further, cousin Severus entered the room.

He looked upon her with wide, confused eyes. "Not a fan of Victoria's Secret, I take it?", he smirked. She glared daggers at him. Sighing, he placed the crown of Severus the Conqueror on the bedside table and ran a hand through his white-blond hair. Curiously, he picked up a loose red strip of the once-lingerie and began tying it tightly around his forearm.

"Listen, Eileen", he said, as he brought out the wooden box her father had given him earlier. "I know we're not exactly Cinderella and Prince Charming." He lifted the lid. Inside were tiny little bags, each stamped with little stars and the phrase 'cloud 9' on them. "But, you're here, I'm here. I say we try and make the best of things." He opened up a small drawer on the nightstand, and pulled out a syringe, a lighter, and a spoon. Eileen gaped at him in disbelief. "I think you should have some, it'll help you relax."

"You're joking, right?"

"Your dad brews the finest China White in the business. Nothing but your loss there, sweetheart."

Eileen crossed her arms and angrily sat on the edge of the bed, looking out the window. She brooded in silence, noticing for the first time the full moon that hung over the black horizon. _Would that I was a Werewolf. _Her musings were interrupted by the cold, veiny, hands of cousin Severus undoing the clasp of her bra.

"What are you doing?", she snapped, turning around.

He looked at her as if she had just grown a second head. "Consummating our marriage.", he stated matter-of-factly.

"Severus.", she sighed and looked at him pleadingly. "My head hurts, I'm tired, I'm drained in every way possible. Please...can't we just do this another night?"

His face turned to stone in the darkness. "I realize we're very different people, Eileen, but I have put forth every effort tonight to make you a happy little bride. All of which, has been met by your bitching, your shrieking, and your tears. Take off your fucking panties. Now"

"No, Severus. Please...", she cried and trembled.

Reaching into the drawer where he got the syringe and spoon, he produced a small object.

"Severus, please..."

He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her onto the bed with such force that for a terrified second she feared it had been ripped from it's socket. From the tiny object flipped open a blade that shone razor sharp in the moonlight. He grabbed her close and held her tightly from behind. Eileen went numb. All she could feel was the blade against her throat, his throbbing manhood against her thighs, and her rapid pulse pounding in her ears.

"I told you, sweetling, this can either be easy," he hacked off her panties with the switchblade. "Or, this can be hard."

He rammed her in one stroke.


	3. Don't Forget To Scream When You Wake Up!

"**Who are you and who am I, to say we know the reason why? Some are born; Some men die, beneath one infinite sky. There'll be war and there'll be peace, but everything one day will cease. All the iron turned to rust, all the proud men turned to dust. -Pink Floyd, _Childhood's End_**

Subject no. 394 – age 10: Typhus injected via spine. Reaction not yet apparent

Subject no. 395 – age 8: Cranial impact delivered every 10 seconds. 2:46 p.m. - Skull has begun to fracture. 5:32 p.m – Subject has begun to show developments of psychosis. 7:15 p.m – Subject dead via hemorrhaging.

Subject no. 396 – age 9: Week 3 infected with tuberculosis. Remedy attempts have resulted in failure. Send for extermination.

_I poured over the photos attached to the notes. All the children in them were about my age, only they looked near death; they all had the similar appearance of being a single layer of skin stretched too-thin over bare bones. Some of them had great big growths in their backs and legs, or didn't have legs at all. One little girl had her eyes taken out of her head and was hooked up to some strange machine. Another only had a head, which was wired to a crude, skeletal looking, metal 'body.' _

"_Grandpa, I thought you said you were a doctor?"_

"_I am a doctor, silly boy.", he smiled, ruffling my hair._

"_I thought doctors were supposed to make people better...it looks like you made them sick."_

_Grandpa put his arm around my shoulders, and looked down thoughtfully. "Well, you see, Severus, it's like the old American saying goes. If you want to make an omelet, you have to open up a few eggs."_

"_It looks like you had to open up a few people."_

_Grandpa chuckled. "Yes, well, what I mean to say is...we are men of science, little Severus-" _

"_I'm not little anymore, Grandpa."_

_He looked at me with mock-crossness. "My apologies, Your Grace.", he said, playfully tweaking my nose. "Anyway, as I was saying, we are men of science. As such, in order to further our knowledge, in order to achieve _progress_, it's necessary that we...experiment... _

Subjects no. 397 & 398 – age 11: Adrenaline glands harvested and added directly to Xenochrome potion. Final product twice as potent as previous batch. (Keep bodies at room temperature, perhaps?)

Subject no. 399 – age 14: Placed in decompression chamber, altitude of 18,256 m simulated. Did not survive.

"_Sure, rats can be used, or cats, or dogs. However, once you've been allowed to dabble on the human canvas...that is where science becomes art. More than that even..."_

_His hand drifted toward a chess set on the bedside table. He began fiddling with one of the pawns, somewhat unconsciously._

"_I mean, when you're experimenting on props or animals, it's like playing with toys. However, when you hold human life in your hands...when you can lay it on a table, shape it, mold it, change it, twist it...", he began to lightly flick the chess pieces over, one by one. "It's practically like playing God."_

_Grandpa seemed to be very far away. I watched as he sat there, mindlessly tipping over the chess pieces, gazing out to space with eyes of glass; whatever scene was playing out behind them, I couldn't even begin to guess. I picked up the box of notes and photos again, reaching in and taking out the first Polaroid I touched. This one presented a somewhat lighter tone. It was of Grandpa, looking young and jubilant, arm-in-arm with another doctor, both smiling on the edge of laughter. _This must have been his partner..._The other man stood slightly shorter than Grandpa. He had neatly cropped brown hair and brown eyes, and sported a slight gap between his front teeth. If one didn't know better, you could say they were college boys at a frat party. I turned the Polaroid over in my hands. There was writing scrawled on the back:_

Drs. Prince and Mengele.

12 April, 1943

Auschwitz.

…...

The air tasted gray. Dust. Asbestos. Mildew. More dust. Yes, gray. It was the only way she really could describe the distinct smell that permeated the air of long, long, abandoned buildings. It was so cold the misted clouds of her breath were visible in the dim, off-white light of empty winter. The only sound that could be heard was radio static that seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere. _Where am I?_

"Hello!", she called. The only response was the echo that reverberated from a thousand empty rooms.

To her left there was a doorway leading to a stairwell. Cautiously, she entered. _It must go up at least 20 stories._ One by one she ascended, looking for any sign of life. Every single doorway she encountered was boarded up by planks. Here and there she could spot rectangular discolorations in the walls, as if they were once adorned by pictures or paintings. Every window was shattered, leaving small shards of glass on the ground which were all but buried in dust; Eileen had to tread carefully to avoid a possible sliced foot.

"Hellooo!", she called out again. _Ello-ello-ello_. No sound, but for the radio static. Seeds of fear began to crack and spread in the pit of her stomach. Her fingers became icy and numb as she continued to climb flight after flight of stairs. Suddenly, a black particle of sorts bounded toward her, so quickly her eyes couldn't even take it in; it landed square in the middle of her chest, moving and twitching, the sensation of a waxy feather. She felt long antennae caress the underside of her chin, as her heart stopped. Squealing, she spastically clawed at her chest, sending the offending creature hurling to the floor. The insect bore the body of a cockroach and the long, arched legs of a spider, she had never seen anything quite like it. Turning forward again, she saw another, and another.

When she reached the next small landing, she found their source. In the corner lay a decayed mass of orange fur, black rot and bone that had once been a fox. The strange insects crawled inside and out of its mouth, and various other orifices formed of decomposition. They had no wings, but could jump well over Eileen's head, and seemed to be eerily attracted to her. Instinctively pulling her arms close to her body and shielding her face with her hands, she ran up the next flight of stairs, spasmodically swatting at her hair and arms when she felt a phantom crawling sensation. She didn't stop running until she was three flights clear of the fox and any sign of the bugs. Finding herself at another main landing, she stopped to catch her breath. In front of her, was another boarded-up doorway. On the wall along the stairs leading upwards, someone had tagged graffiti in black spray paint:

_NIGHT CREW WAS HERE._

Was it her fear-struck imagination, or was the radio static growing louder? She turned again to the boarded entryway, running her fingers along dust-coated plywood. So caked in dust, it was barely discernible from the rest of the wall, a plaque was imbedded. Eileen brushed off the thick coating of dust to reveal its lettering.

_Gryffindor! Where dwell the brave at heart!_

"The entrance to Gryffindor tower...Hogwarts...no, this can't be.", she whispered to herself, the words drifting from her mouth in tufts of mist that dissipated in the stillness. However, when she looked upon her surroundings again, she knew them. The stairs lie motionless, the walls barren, everything around her in a state of at least 5 decades of undisturbed decay, yet...here she stood, at what could only be Hogwarts. _This can't be real...I don't understand._

Tapping. Light and scattered, yet rhythmic. Small footsteps. "Hello! Who's there?" No response. The tapping fades into the distance, leaving only echoes behind. Eileen ran, taking the rest of the steps two at a time, until breathlessly, she reached an open corridor. It was long and desolate as the rest of the forsaken castle. She could spot patches of black mold growing on the walls. To her left, someone had tagged more graffiti, in the same black spraypaint.

_ROCK ME, AMADEUS! _

Walking along, she simply stared in disbelief at the rotting emptiness bathed in gray winter's light coming from the shattered windows. Above, it looked like an intercom speaker had become the home to a small nest of wasps. Amazingly enough, it must still be operational, as it was from there the radio static was emitting. _This doesn't make any sense...I was here as a student no more than 8 years ago. There was no word in the papers of any sort of shutdown. _Off to the side, she spied a lone table, on top of which lay a book. Curiously, she picked it up, brushing away the dust and cobwebs which had long since settled on it.

_Libatius Borage's Advanced Potion Making._ She remembered having the same textbook during her sixth year of school. When she opened the book, however, every single page was occupied with the same thing. One bizarre line of text, repeated over and over and over again.

_And he shall storm the Earth, wielding a wand of steel, leaving naught in his wake but triumph and ashes. And he shall storm the Earth, wielding a wand of steel, leaving naught in his wake but triumph and ashes. And he shall storm the Earth, wielding a wand of steel, leaving naught in his wake but triumph and ashes. And he shall storm the Earth, wielding a wand of steel, leaving naught in his wake but triumph and ashes..._

_SCREEEEEECH...SCREEEEECH!_

Eileen threw the book in the air, gasping, clutching at a heart that felt close to bursting. She eyed the intercom speaker, which had begun emitting bizarre sounds, not even daring to breathe.

_SCREEEEEECH...SCREEEEECH!_

On second hearing, she knew the sounds to be vaguely familiar. They were the tones that would play on muggle television sets, before a test of the emergency broadcast system. The sound was setting her teeth on edge. She wanted to scream. After a few grueling seconds, an eerily monotone, automated female voice began to speak.

_Alpha. Yankee. Foxtrot. Alpha. Yankee. Foxtrot. Three. Nine. Seven. One. Five. Three. Nine. Seven. One. Five..._

The robotic voice continued to drone out strings of numbers amidst waves of static, speaking to empty corridors in this strange place that time had forgotten. Eileen continued down the way, dazedly gazing out of shattered windows as she passed, watching snow fall over the Forbidden Forest, which had been stripped bare by the cold season.

_One. Five. Seven. Two. Eight. One. Five. Seven. Two. Eight..._

Eileen's foot caught on something lying on the floor. She flailed her arms and tried to steady herself, though to no avail, she came crashing to the ground, luckily landing on her hands. The offending object appeared to be someone's discarded school uniform. Gray vest and pants, blue and bronze tie, a Ravenclaw. When Eileen pulled herself into a sitting position, she realized her hands were covered in something other than dust. She rubbed between her fingers something gray and black and sooty. _Ashes._ Gingerly picking up the vest, she watched as it shed a pile of ashes onto the ground, as well as some solid white fragments of a sort. She picked up the fragments for closer inspection, nearly vomiting when she realized what they were. In her hand she held human teeth.

_One. Nine. Two. Seven. Four. One. Nine. Two. Seven. Four..._

Eileen could no longer stifle the urge to scream. Scrambling to her feet, she hurled the teeth at the wall and began feverishly wiping her hands on her dress. She wanted to tear off her own skin; no part of her felt clean. The sound of small footsteps threw her from hysterics to pure, frozen, baited breath terror. They were steadily coming closer.

_Seven. Eight. Four. Nine. Four. Seven. Eight. Four. Nine. Four..._

_Click-clack-click-clack. _Nearer and nearer. It was all Eileen could do to just keep breathing. A small figure appeared at the far end of the corridor; a little boy. Knees trembling, she strode over to the short, skinny silhouette, not even daring to speak. They regarded each other in silence. The boy donned rich, black robes, which strongly contrasted his milk-white skin. His hair was a mess of ebony that fell just below his chin, framing strikingly cold black eyes. On his head sat a crown, cut from golden-yellow construction paper. Eileen noticed uncomfortably that it was stained with red splotches.

"Mother...", the child cooed, flashing her a grin.

"I-I think you're mistaken, sweetheart.", Eileen had never seen this child in her life.

"I'm never wrong.", The child's eyes flashed dangerously, his face quickly reflecting annoyance.

"Do you know what happened here, dearheart?", She bent to his level and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Progress.", He replied simply, his frown turning to a prideful grin. "Do you want to see what I've got upstairs?"

"Please, child, if you know this place, could you show me out? All the exits I've found are boarded up. I just want to leave."

_One. Five. Seven. Two. Eight. One. Five. Seven. Two. Eight..._

He offered her his hand, which she took. "This way." He began to lead her up the stairs. If memory served, this was the way up to the astronomy tower.

"Where are you going? These stairs lead to the astronomy tower, there's no way out up there."

"I know a gentleman who might disagree with that assessment."

"I don't understand, what is it that you want?"

He grabbed her other hand and yanked her down to his level. He looked into her eyes for a moment, and then brought his lips to her ear and whispered..."I want everything." The words held such gravitas that it sent a sharp chill down Eileen's spine.

"What-"

"Hush!", He squeezed her hands in his and jerked her forward slightly. For a bony child, he had a scary amount of strength. "Wait'll you see what I have upstairs."

As she followed the child, hand-in-hand up the stairs, she noticed more discarded uniforms littered about. _What in God's name could have happened here? This can't be real..._

_Seven. Eight. Four. Five. One. Seven. Eight. Four. Five. One..._

The child released her hand when they reached the top of the tower. The large steel globe that occupied the center of the balustrade was rusted beyond repair. Next to it stood a simple picnic table that bore a cardboard box.

"What is it that you wanted to show me?"

The child ushered her over to the table, a grin of satisfaction on his face. _He has eyes like mine...that hair too..._ She had also seen that grin before. It was her father's; the look of utter satisfaction crossed with crazed, childlike excitement that he reserved specifically for times when he completed a project, reached a new milestone in potion making, or was sharing tales of the SS.

The child wrapped his long, slender fingers around the lid of the box. "Look." He removed the lid, and Eileen's stomach let go. When she had passed the first wave of vomit, she dared to take a second look of the horror in the box. It was a woman's severed head. Her hair was a deep shade of crimson, her skin pure white tinged with blue from her burgeoning decay. Her eyes might have been green once, but it was hard to tell. The strange jumping spiders that were eating away at the fox had all but devoured her eyes. She watched as they crawled in and out of her mouth and neck, their larvae wriggling around in the rotten meat.

"Isn't she a beauty?" Eileen only stared, frozen in terror. "Come, I'll show you the way out." He moved a couple feet to the edge of the balustrade, and beckoned her to come over. She wanted to run, she wanted to scream, but she didn't dare do a thing that might provoke the child. The sharp chill of winter nearly froze her forming tears to her eyelashes. She grasped the railing and peered over the edge of the tower. What she saw brought forth a terrified whimper from her lips. A body, being picked clean by ravens. She looked in disgust as one of the carrion tore tender skin off the dead man's face and flew off into the gray sky with a beak full of flesh. The man was dressed in long, elegant robes of blue and purple. His hair and lengthy beard were the same shade of aged white. Mother of God, it was Dumbledore down there!

"This is the only way out. Sorry mother." Small, slender hands rammed her back with the strength of a grown man. She screamed so hard her throat nearly burst as she careened backwards towards the Earth. She could still see the child, bending over the railing, his ebony hair fanning out in the wind around a face that was howling with laughter. His words echoed through her brain.

"Sorry, mother."

"Mother."

"Mother."

"Mother!"

"MOTHER!"

Eileen jerked awake with a start, panting heavily as she found her son's hazel eyes looking down at her.

"Mother, I'm bored. I want to-"

She cut him off with a frenzied embrace, holding the small boy to her trembling, cold-sweat drenched body. Looking over his shoulder, she came across the half empty bottle of quaaludes she left on the coffee table. _Looks like Mommy's little helper got the best of me. _Her son's fine, white-blonde hair felt like silk between her fingers as she stroked it. "Oh, my baby. My sweet baby. I had the most horrible dream."

"I'm not a baby!", he said indignantly.

"Oh, Viserus, you'll always be _my_ baby. Don't you forget that.", She whispered, releasing him from her embrace and looking him in the eye. The three-year-old smiled in spite of himself.

"What were you dreaming about, Mom?"

"I dreamed that I had a different little boy...he was nothing like you.", she squeezed her child's hand. "He wasn't like any child that I've ever come across. He was evil and he kept showing me dead things. It was horrible."

"Grandpa says that dreams are like jigsaw puzzles. You get a bunch of pieces of picture, but they don't make any sense because they're all scrambled. But, if you're smart you can put them together, and they'll show you a picture of the future.", he spread his hands in the air in an exaggerated gesture. "I have lots of scary dreams, too. There's one I've had twice. I'm playing Quidditch, and then all of a sudden my body turns into a hamburger and I get sucked into this big, scary white light. After that, a bunch of ladies wearing white tell me I'm in heaven. Grandpa says...if you have the same dream three times that it's sure to come true in real life!" His eyes began to tear and his voice became shaky. "I've had that dream two times, mom. What if...what if I have it a third time?"

She pulled Viserus onto her lap and hugged him close. "Viserus, do you remember that talk we had about Grandpa?"

"The one where you told me that I need to pour salt on him?"

She laughed out loud. "I think you're a little mixed up, sweetling. I said that you need to take what he says with a pinch of salt. It's an old expression. It means that Grandpa...let's just say...isn't always right about everything." He looked up at her with wide eyes that didn't understand or believe how that could ever be possible. She only sighed. "Why don't you go wake up Dad and see if he wants to take you on a broom ride?" His face beamed into a smile and he ran up the stairs. The boy simply adored flying, and it was a treat he seldom got to indulge in, as his father was rarely home, and when he was home, his mind floated off with what flowed through his arm.

Eileen lit a cigarette and dragged deep. Tendrils of smoke hovered and snaked out in the light of the late afternoon sun. She rested her back against the couch and just took a moment to enjoy the sound of silence. It had been a blissfully peaceful week. Aunt Jenny was off on a two week vacation to Hawaii with the Studworths, and Eileen was on a two week vacation from Aunt Jenny. For two whole weeks she was spared the usual barrage of criticism that followed basically anything she did. Her cooking was too bland, she was babying Viserus too much, her taste in clothing was too plain, her tits were too small, she was too skinny...and the list went on. _If that hag walked as much as she bitched, she might actually be in shape_, Eileen mused.

'And Viserus!? What kind of a name is Viserus!?', her Aunt would rant at least once a day. Oh, the flack she caught over that name. Of course, if anyone had actually _been _there when she was in childbed with him, that whole situation might have been avoided. Being that her darling husband was out with God knows who, Aunt Jenny was God knows where, and her father was doing God knows what, she had to apparrate to St. Mungo's alone. When the healers placed the wailing infant into her arms and asked what the boy's name shall be, she had meant to say Severus. However, she was so zonked up on pain potions, that she had responded in a drawled, mess of syllables that sounded something like 'vvvsssserrrrrveersssss', which the hospital clerk had interpreted to Viserus. With no one around to correct her, and it being too late to change the records, Eileen was sent home three days later with a baby boy who bore a slurred perversion of the traditional family name. In truth, deep down, she couldn't think of anything more amusing.

Her little Prince Viserus was truly her only joy in the life she now led. Her relationship with her husband had evolved into a venomous paradox wherein she managed to both hate his absence and his presence. She hated when he was around, ambling around the house with his eyes rolling back in his head like the heroin space cadet that he was. Even more so, she abhorred providing the sex he so vehemently demanded, and he _knew_ it. She had even told him to just get his jollies off with the thralls and just leave her alone. To cousin Severus, however, 'no' meant 'yes', and 'leave me alone' meant 'fuck me harder.' She hated when he wasn't around because of what it would do to Viserus. Through his three-year-old eyes, the drugged up waste of carbon was still his father. A man who, during the rare times he was awake and alert, would bounce him on his knee and take him for broom rides. To a boy that young, she supposed Dad would always take the guise of a ten-foot-tall superhero, regardless of who they actually were behind their upraised mid-peekaboo hands. When he was away, she would often catch Viserus peering out the window with a look of melancholy spread across his small features, wondering when dad would come sauntering up the walkway.

The boy did not lack for male company though, oh no. Good ol' Grandpa had been showing him the ropes of life, death, and the wizarding world before he could even hold his own head up. He would spend hours, just prattling on, and on, and on, throwing reservation and any sense of age apropos to the wind while her boy listened intently and poured over old pictures the man would bring. She had once tried to forbid her father from having contact with her son, when one night Viserus began asking such questions as 'What's a mudblood?', 'What does nuclear winter mean?', and 'Did Adolf Hitler really have a spaceship?'. She had railed on Dr. Prince the next day, asking him if he was out of his mind, screaming that he was never to visit her son again. Of course, her father only met her concerns with his usual 'And how do you propose to stop me?'.

How did she? Three against one, that was the story of her life. She could rage against her husband, but it would only upset Aunt Jenny, who controlled the household's income. She could rage against Aunt Jenny, but that would upset her husband, who controlled the fathering of her son. She could rage against her father, but he had control over Aunt Jenny, who had control over the money and control over her husband, who had control over the fathering of her son. She could rage against all three of them, threaten to leave and never come back, as she did so many times, but all three would cry in chorus 'excommunication from the family forever', and would share the story of the penniless single mother named Eileen Prince who had to whore herself on the ghetto streets just to feed her starving son. And then there was Viserus, who so cherished Dad's broom rides, Grandma's home baked peanut butter cookies, and Grandpa's stories. The little boy who counted down the days to Christmases where he would receive droves of presents and enjoy a night of partying with his Mom, Dad, and Grandparents. Viserus, he controlled her heart, and he was coming down the stairs right now with a used syringe in his hands.

"Mom, Dad won't get up.", he whined, with his tiny fingers wrapped around the barrel of the syringe. Eileen ran to him.

"Viserus, give that to me! Where did you get this!?", She took the syringe out of his hand slowly and carefully, so as to not prick either one of them with the needle and threw it in the trash. Her son cowed at her sudden change of tone.

"It-it was in Dad's arm. I thought he hurt himself, I just wanted to help him.", he shakily explained.

"Listen, sweetheart, I want you to stay right here on the couch. I need to have a talk with your father. Don't move until I come back down to get you, okay?"

He sat down and nodded to her, eyes wide and lips pursed. Turning her back to him, she marched up the stairs, shaking with rage. Cousin Severus had finally gone and done it, he'd shown their boy his habit in all its ugliness, exposed him to drugs, and let him hold a dirty needle. She didn't give a damn what the consequences were, she was going to let him have it, she was going to _kill_ him, only...she wouldn't have to. When she kicked open the door to their bedroom, cousin Severus did not move. He sat propped against the bedside table, caught in a tangle of crimson sheets and blankets that were still half on the mattress. His right arm was a shade of blueish purple that could match the dress she was wearing. The blueish tint crept all the way up his neck towards his mouth, where clumps of white foam were crusting over. His toes were beginning to turn black. A very slight, faint odor was beginning to waft from his body due to the summer heat. At the very least, his eyes were closed, so he merely looked asleep in the eyes of Viserus. Eileen just stared, rubbed her eyes, and stared some more, little by little letting the image in front of her permeate her current reality. As first order of business, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and counted to ten, and then calmly walked out of the room and closed the door behind her.

"Viserus, sweetheart!" She called from upstairs.

"Yeah mom?"

"I need you to go to your room and shut the door please."

"Am I in trouble, mom?"

"No, just please, do as I say."

Without another word he scuttled up the stairs and down the opposite hall to his bedroom and did as he was bid. Eileen was not a particularly squeamish person, she had seen death and bodies before...just never close enough to smell. She didn't feel up to going back in the bedroom just yet. She paced up and down the hall, trying as best she could to shake off the initial shock of what just happened and collect her thoughts. _He's dead...he's really dead...the bastard's finally gone and done it. I told him a thousand times that he was going to turn up blue one day if he kept shooting up that shit and now it's finally happened. _There was no love lost between Eileen and her now late husband. There was neither grief nor sadness in her heart, and quite frankly, not even surprise. All there was, was anger. Her husband lay peacefully in his grave a few feet away. The manner of his death was probably painless as falling asleep after a hot meal. The crude, thoughtless, brainless, useless son of a bitch died in total satisfaction.

As for Eileen, she would be the one who would have to look a three-year-old in the eyes and tell him that Daddy was never going to wake up again. She would be the one who would have to face his tears when she told him there would be no more broom rides, because Dad was too in love with a drug that made him sleepy to give any kind of thought to his family. She would be the one who would have to face a thousand questions from Aunt Jenny, and every day from this day forward somehow be blamed for his death because she was his wife and goddamn it she should have done something. She could see it all now, playing out in her head. Her father and Aunt Jenny feeding her son stories about how his mother drove his father to the needle with her frigid ways and did nothing to help him. Her son would grow to hate and resent her, and day by day he would fall deeper into Aunt Jenny and her father's web of insanity. He would drift away from her, grow up, and start spewing racial slurs like 'mudblood' and 'half-breed' left and right. He'd marry a Lestrange or a Studworth, have children of his own and teach them what he'd been taught, leaving his mother forgotten and alone.

With shaking hands, she lit another cigarette and leaned against the railing at the landing of the stairs. She turned her eyes toward the huge tapestry that hung above the main doors of the home. It illustrated the Prince family tree. At the far edge of it, she could see Viserus' little white haired head which had just been added. Her eyes absently followed the intricate web of faces and names that spanned 40 centuries, traveling upward as the skin tone of each face slowly went from sallow white, to lightly tanned, to dark. Further upward, the English alphabet ended and Egyptian hieroglyphics began. Her eyes scanned all the way up until she reached the top, which of course was none other than Severus The Conqueror, flanked by his two sister-wives. _How do you like us now?_, she mentally asked the image on the tapestry, which stared stoically down at her through cold, black eyes painted with cat-like eyeliner. _What would you say if you knew that one of your supposed 'great descendants' is lying dead in the next room like a common muggle junkie? Would you still look so goddamn smug up there, you great hardass?_

Eileen thought back to one of her father's visits to the house. It was late at night and she had just put Viserus to bed. She was deep in her cups already and her father had just settled down on the couch and began pouring himself a drink. Her mind was hazily drifting through memories of old events, and a question occurred to her. She turned to her father and asked, 'So, is this one, Dad? Is this your great king come again? Is this what I had to sell my life for? Will little Viserus be our promised champion that we just had to have?' Her voice dripped mocking sarcasm, but as always, her father's face betrayed no emotion. 'He's a good boy.', he replied, taking a swig of his scotch. That was it. After all his diatribe of conquerors and kings that had been the driving force of Eileen's arranged marriage, that was all the old man had to say about the final product. Did he just happen to forget about his obsession over his little prophecy? Or, was he, for some reason, waiting for something else? Eileen honestly didn't care. Her life was what it was and there was nothing she could do to change it. Like it or not though, it had now changed all by itself. While she could abide what it had been for the past four years, she knew the misery that was sure to come would break her.

Unless..._the safe._ There was a safe in the bedroom that contained all the money her husband had on hand at any given time. Aunt Jenny may have been a mollycoddler, but she wasn't an idiot. She knew if cousin Severus had free reign over the family's money it would be pissed away in a matter of weeks. Therefore, she regulated his funds in the form of a monthly allowance which he kept locked away in the safe. There was never a king's ransom in there, but it was usually a good, hard sum. Eileen had snuck a peek at her husband dialing in the combination one night, and for some time stole galleons from the safe for shopping trips here and there, as she was allowed no personal funds of her own. When cousin Severus discovered money was slowly going missing, he charmed the safe so none but he could open it. Now that he was dead...his magic was dead with him.

Eileen darted back into the bedroom, doing her best to avert her eyes from the corpse and ignore the odor. Carefully, she input the combination. A surge of excitement shot through her as she heard the satisfying _click _and opened up the little door. As fast as she could, she counted out a total of 3,000 galleons and stuffed them in her purse. It wasn't a fortune, but it was enough to get her and Viserus room and board for a while in England. It was enough to start a new life for her and her son. _He's lost his father, _a voice in her head told her,_ you would have him lose his beloved grandmother and grandfather, too? All in the same day? _Eileen knew that if she left for England there would be no turning back. She'd have to sever all contact with her family forever. While that was no tragedy to her,it would hurt Viserus terribly. It may hurt him for a long time. However, he was only three. He would heal. He would forget. She would rather bestow upon her son one period of pain and grief than a lifetime of brainwashing by insane blood purists and wannabe royals.

Hurriedly, she pulled out her suitcases from the closet and began to pack all the belongings she would need. Clothes, toiletries, a select few favorite books, brushes, jewels, shoes, and...the glimmering gold and emerald artifact caught her eye from the ornate showcase in which it was housed. The crown of Severus The Conqueror. _We could live for years on what that crown would yield, should we sell it to a museum..._ She sauntered slowly to the showcase, carefully opening the glass. As she raised her fingers to the crown, however, an unpleasant knot formed in her stomach. Something about this...just felt wrong. She recalled an article she once read about the RMS Titanic. Supposedly, a wealthy American archeologist had brought the mummified remains of the princess of Amen-Ra on board the ship, meaning to transport them to New York. Legend had it that the mummy was cursed. Eileen was never a superstitious woman and rarely gave thought to the paranormal, but...2,000 people went to their icy deaths on that boat. Severus The Conqueror's crown was said to be cursed as well; that it would bring death and misery to those who wore it unjustly. To have that crown in her possession just felt strangely unclean to her. Besides, it was a fresh, new life she wanted, away from all the ludicrous, antiquated traditions and customs of the Princes. She decided to leave the crown behind.

Eileen once again turned to the corpse of her husband. She noticed uncomfortably that a small crowd of fruit flies were beginning to explore his milk-white and purple flesh. Holding her breath, she bent down and flicked off the gold watch he was wearing, then stripped him of his chains and rings as well. Lastly, she removed the two ridiculous looking golden earrings he always insisted on wearing. With them gone, he might have actually looked better, if he wasn't dead. After she packed away the jewelery , she grabbed the comforter from the bed and respectfully laid it over cousin Severus' corpse. It was, after all, the least she could do.

Backing away from the body, she carefully scanned over the room, seeing if there was anything else worth taking. Her eyes fell to five porcelain figurines on the dresser. How could she forget? As much as she wanted to leave her old life behind, she would not abandon the Night Crew. The little figures had always represented the happy times in her youth, the days worth remembering. Grabbing some old Daily Prophet pages from the bedside table, she carefully wrapped up the dark prince, the mystic princess, the innocent unicorn, the golden knight, and the hard at work blacksmith, and set them inside the suitcase. She had packed all she needed, but now came the hardest part. She took one last sweeping look around the room, knowing it would be the last time she would ever do so, grabbed her luggage, walked out and shut the door behind her. Down the opposite end of the hallway was her son in his bedroom. Her little boy who thought his Dad was merely sleeping too heavily, who had no idea that this would be his last day in his home, and expected a fun filled visit from his Grandfather before the week was out.

Eileen walked down the hall and opened the door to his bedroom with a heart as heavy as lead. She searched and searched her mind, but the words just could not be found.

"Viserus, dearheart, I...I...I need you to pack up your things."

"Why, mom?"

_Why?_ "Because...we're going on a trip."

A look of confusion spread over the child's features. "Why? Where are we going?"

_Why, why, why...the eternal why of a child. This isn't going to be easy._ Eileen knelt down to her son's level, feigning a look of excitement on her face. "Sweetheart, do you know how you're always telling me how badly you want to take a ride on the Knight Bus?"

He nodded. "Well guess what?"

"What?"

"Today, we're gonna get to take a ride on the Knight Bus all the way to England! Just you and me! Won't that be so much fun!", She smiled and batted her eyes at him.

The child beamed. "Really!?"

"Yes! Now you make sure you collect up all the toys you want to bring and Mommy will help pack up your clothes, okay?"

He nodded, smiling from ear to ear, and began fritzing around the room, not knowing what to pack first. _Well that accomplished something, at least... _In between folding Viserus' little garments and packing them away, Eileen called up the Knight Bus customer service line and requested pickup for the first bus bound to England. At 6:30 p.m., her and Viserus would be boarding bus #1202, which would take them from Frankfurt to a town called Spinner's End, in Cokeworth, England. _A place I've never been to, a place I've never heard of, a place I'd have no reason to be, a place my father or aunt or anyone else would never think to look..._

At promptly 6:25 p.m., Eileen and Viserus stood at the front curb, luggage in hand. For the moment at least, the little boy had forgotten about his not-so-sleeping father, he was so excited about getting to ride the Knight Bus. Pangs of guilt gnawed at her chest at the sight of his carefree smile. She had to break the news to him somehow. Viserus was not a dull-witted boy, he would notice something was off about all of this sooner rather than later. For now though, all she wanted was to be safely on the bus, out of the open, low hanging evening sunlight which left her feeling so exposed. She felt a sense of foreboding in the air, an unpleasant, too-quiet stillness that bespoke something going wrong. Nervously, she glanced at her watch. _6:28_..._Come on.. _

And then, at the very edge of her hearing, there it was. The all too familiar _swish_ and _pop_ of someone apparrating nearby. _Mother of God, not now... _Apparrating guests always entered through the back door, so as to be out of sight by the various muggle residences on the street. She knew that for the moment at least, she had not been seen. _Maybe whoever it is inside will assume we're not home, that I took Viserus to the playground...maybe they'll just leave, they won't think to go upstairs, to open the door to the bedroom. _She glanced at her watch again. _6:29._ _Please, please, please..._

"Grandpa!"

_Fuck._

He would have run straight into the man's arms, had she not grabbed him by the collar. The child looked up at her, frightened and confused. Her father stood at the front door, his expression unreadable.

"Eileen, what is all this? Where are you going?"

Her blood turned to ice in her veins. Her mouth moved in vain to form words that could not be found. She had the look of a dear in headlights as her child struggled against her grasp. The sound of an engine slowly approached, and a moment later, a tall, purple bus came into view. In one fell swoop, her father's expression changed from guarded suspicion, to understanding, to unhinged fury.

"EILEEN! DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!", He broke into a run. Even at the age of 50, Dr. Prince could still beat most teenagers at a footrace.

The Knight Bus opened its doors. Eileen seized her son by his clothes and threw him on the bus, followed by the baggage. The driver, a wisp of a young man, only stared wide-eyed.

"EEEEAAAHGH!" Eileen shrieked as her father's thin, bony fingers wrapped around her ankle and yanked. Her hands and knees scraped along the pavement, but she managed to scurry back to her feet, like an animal struggling against a predator. Viserus began to cry. The driver's eyes grew ever wider.

"Eileen! Get my grandson off that bus! What the hell do you think you're doing!?", His face was twisted with rage, spittle was flying from his mouth.

"I'm LEAVING! I'm DONE! I'm done with this family and I'm done with YOU! I won't have my son being raised around you degenerates anymore! And by the way, my ever-so-loving and cherished husband is DEAD! His corpse is in the bedroom, you can deal with the funeral expenses.", Her voice was cracked from shrieking.

Her father was breathing heavily. His voice dropped to a low growl. "You...I'll find you. Wherever you go, I will find you, you _cunt_."

"Save your energy for Aunt Jenny, Father, she's going to want a good romp in the sack to take her mind off her dead son. Or, is he _your_ dead son, too? It wouldn't surprise me in the least."

Dr. Prince lunged at his daughter in a maelstrom of unbridled fury, but Eileen was prepared. He cried out loud when her fist connected with his face, shattering his glasses and sending him flying backwards. Before her father could regain his footing, Eileen scrambled up onto the bus. The driver sat there, gaping.

"What are you doing!? DRIVE!"

Snapping out of his trance, the driver quickly closed the sliding doors and put the bus in gear. Eileen caught one last glimpse of her father. Rivulets of blood ran down his face where shards of his ruined glasses dug into his flesh. His mouth ran wildly, spewing a string of profanity she would never hear, whilst he shook his fists. She turned towards the other passengers on board, all of which were staring at her with eyes as wide as dinner plates.

"AND WHAT ARE ALL OF YOU GAWKING AT!?", She shook her fist, which she now realized was dripping blood and had several chunks of glass sticking out of it. The other patrons of the bus hurriedly looked away and whispered amongst themselves. Grabbing onto a handrail, she took a moment to catch her breath and let a bit of her raging adrenaline subside before loading her luggage in the compartment of the nearest seat.

"M-m-mommy? Dad is...d-d-dead? Why did you hit Grandpa? What's going on?"

She turned to find his little cherubic face stricken with abject horror. _Shit._ She did not want him to find out this way. Gently, she lifted him up and took her seat, cradling him on her lap. His tears shimmered in the light of the setting sun.

"Sweetheart, I..."

"We're never going back home again, are we, Mommy?" _He was not a dull-witted boy._

"No, sweetling, no we're not. Your father won't be waking up again. And your grandpa, he's a bad man, a very bad man. One day, when you're older, I'll explain why-"

"I don't believe you!", He cried in a voice brimming with sorrow and anger. "It's just like Grandpa says! You're a..a..a..a BITCH!"

"Viserus! That talk stops right here, young man!", She wondered what other colorful poetry her father had taught the boy.

"No! It's not fair! Why do we have to leave home? Grandpa never did anything wrong!", _Yes he did, Viserus, he cut up little kids like you and brewed their organs in his cauldron. But he probably told you Auschwitz was full of candy and fairy dust, didn't he?_

"Viserus, I know it seems unfair right now, but believe me, one day you'll understand that things are better this way."

"That's bullshit, Mom-"

"Viserus!"

"I want to go home! I want Grandma and Grandpa!" He began to sob in earnest; breathing in deeply and letting out screams of pure anguish. The sound of his cries carried through all three floors of the bus, as only a toddler's could. Eileen popped a quaalude and held her head in her hands. _Well, this is going just swimmingly, isn't it?_

"Hey, lady! How about you shut that kid up!", One of the second floor passengers hollered.

"How about you go screw yourself!", Whoever was up there backed off. Luckily, Viserus didn't hear her words over his tantrum. She didn't need to be teaching her son more filth. Nevertheless, she was not about to tolerate his ear-splitting screams for the next 7 hours. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a bottle of Kool Aid, Viserus' favorite drink. Turning her back to him, she pulled out a small vial of purple liquid as well. In one swift motion she discreetly poured the Draught of the Living Death into the Kool Aid. _If all else fails..._

"Viserus, sweetie", She gently shook him and he turned to her, hyperventilating with a face beat red from crying. He looked at the bottle hungrily. "Why don't you take a drink, dear?"

Shakily, he took the bottle and slowly began to down the sugary spiked beverage. When he was finished, he made to start up his hysterics again, but the scream that escaped his lips quickly dipped to a low moan, and then silence. His head slumped and lightly hit the seat in front of him with a soft _thump_. Eileen slid the boy's body to a prone position on the seat and laid his head on her lap. Stroking his soft, white-blonde hair, she shifted her gaze out the window, absently watching the scenery fly by as the pleasantly dizzying effects of the quaalude began to kick in. She drifted off to sleep as the sun disappeared behind the hills, somewhere between Brussels and Ghent.

It was 1:25 a.m. when the driver announced 'This stop: Railview Hotel, Spinner's End.' Eileen gently nudged Viserus awake and collected her baggage. The child took her hand, still half asleep. Hopefully, he wouldn't regain full awareness until morning, granting Eileen time for a much needed hot shower. She tipped the driver, exited the bus, and made her way towards the most shit-shod hotel she had ever seen.

When she entered the dimly lit, hideously tacky-wallpapered lobby, she could smell the distinct aroma of body odor and cat piss, with just a smattering of marijuana. On the wall directly in front of her hung a needlework sampler. It read: _"Progress for progress' sake is not progress at all_." At the front desk, a hunchbacked, white-haired old woman snored with her head on her hand. Eileen cautiously approached and rang the service bell.

"What in tarnation!- Oh, a customah!", Eileen made the uncomfortable observation that the woman's mouth bore only three rotting teeth. Her breath reflected it.

"Excuse me, ma'am. I'll be needing a room for two."

"Wassat, miss? I can't hears ya! Ya gots to speak up!"

"I'll be needing a room for two!"

"Huh? What? These ol' ears, miss, they dun work so good no more. Ah hell, Tobeh! Tobeh, get down here and help ya mothah out!", She called upstairs.

"I'm busy, mom!", A gruff sounding voice answered.

"Like hell ya are, ya good for nuthin' freeloadah! Get ya ass down here and help me with this customah!"

"Jesus Christ!"

She heard shuffling coming from upstairs, and then a tall man, clad in workboots, blue jeans and a white wife-beater came stomping down the steps. Light, mouse brown hair framed blue-gray eyes in a shaggy, unkempt, obvious home-haircut. He looked upon her down a hooked nose as his masculine, 5 o' clock shadow bearing jaw momentarily shifted into a welcoming half-grin. That was when Eileen Prince found Tobias Snape handsome for the first time.

"Can I help ya?"

"Yes, I-I...need a room for two, please. The name is Prince."

He jotted down a few things on a logbook which lay open on the desk. "Alright, the room will be 35 a night. You'll be in number 27. I'll, uh, help ya with your things.", He stepped out from behind the desk. At the sight of Viserus, his features softened. He knelt down to the drowsy child's level. "'Ey there, little buddy! You're out quite past your bedtime, ain't ya?", Smiling playfully, he ruffled the boy's hair.

Viserus sniffled. "My Daddy is never going to wake up again."

The man's smile faded to a look of awkwardness, and then sorrow. "I'm, uh, sorry to hear that, son.", He said, rubbing the boy's shoulder. He rose back up, his sympathetic eyes meeting Eileen's. She dropped her gaze from his.

"It's a long story.", She spoke softly, her tired eyes looking at the floor.

An awkward silence spread over them. "Maybe you'll tell it to me sometime, hun. Anyway, you folks must be bushed. I'll show ya to the room.", He relieved her of the luggage and led them down the hall to room number 27, and then handed her the key.

"By the way, my name's Tobias Snape, but most folks around here call me Toby.", He held out his hand, which she shook. It was rough and callous. The hands of the proletariat.

"I'm Eileen Prince.", She smiled back at him. "Oh, here.", She reached into her wallet and grabbed a few bills to tip him, but he raised his hand.

"Nah, miss, don't ya worry about it. You just take care of yourself now, ya hear?"

She nodded, and turned the key to her room.

The wallpaper inside the small, double twin bedded space somehow managed to be the most garish yet. It was tearing in places and the ceiling showed several spots of water damage. The carpet reeked of cigarette smoke. She paid no mind, though. Viserus rubbed his eyes and would have nearly collapsed on the floor, had she not scooped him up in her arms. She brought him over to the bed nearest the window and tucked him in, kissing him lightly on the forehead before she strode over to the bathroom.

_This day feels like it's spanned a thousand years, _ she mused as she slid off her dress, wanting nothing more than to climb in the shower, relax, and attempt to process the events that had taken place within the last 24 hours. She slid open the shower curtain...and felt her heart stop in her chest.

Crawling along the white porcelain of the tub, was a large insect. It bore the body of a cockroach, and the long, arched legs of a spider.


	4. Toxic Love

"**Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today, and you make your tomorrow." -L. Ron Hubbard**

"You know, Sev, you really are going to be sorry one day if you don't learn how to swim.", Lily chided, flipping her crimson hair over one shoulder.

"Oh, Sevvy, I'm sure you'd have a blast swimming if you would just try it!", Aunt Jenny encouraged sweetly.

"What's the matter, _Snivellus_? Nobody ever teach you how to swim?", James Potter jeered, while Sirius Black guffawed.

"You know, Sev, they're offering free swimming lessons down at the Y this summer, maybe you'd be interested?", His mother suggested. Afterwards, tears welled in her eyes for some strange reason.

"When I was a boy, mah Daddy threw us off the docks to teach us how to swim, sure did get our asses in gear, that it did.", his father told him.

"You're not _really_ afraid of water, are you?", Tom Riddle asked.

"Oh come now Severus, you won't drown if you know what you're doing.", His grandfather reassured him.

"D'aawww, isn't that adorable? Wittle Sevvy _shitblood _is afwaid of the water!", Viserus mocked cruelly.

"You know, I used to be afraid of water too. I could...hold your hand, if you like.", Dave offered in a sheepish, quivering voice.

"Seriously, butt munch, the Earth is 70% water. You're going to have a run-in with it sooner or later." His sister teased, licking the mayonnaise off her spoon.

_And that was the echo of every voice I should have listened to. Too little, too late._

_The moment I opened my eyes to discover I was still breathing, I wish I hadn't._

_For half a heartbeat the only sensation I felt was the midday sun searing my retinas and the ocean dangerously rocking to and fro the slab of driftwood that was my only barrier between life and death. Shifting my eyes downward, the first thing I noticed was that my skin was no longer white. None of it. What hadn't been baked an angry shade of scarlet by the sun had been fried black by the fire. Gritting my teeth until they nearly shattered, I managed to raise my right arm. The sound was something akin to bacon on a skillet, and I tried not to notice the large flacks of skin that had simply chipped off with my movement, revealing strings of an opaque, mucusey membrane and the raw, pink tissue underneath. _

_Brushing my trembling fingers against my face, I realized that half my hair had burnt away, but that was by and far the least of my worries. With every slight movement of my body I could feel the flesh on my back, or rather the lack thereof, screaming in white-hot protest. I recalled a story Viserus had been feeling pleasant enough to share on a long car ride once, years ago. It was about some family who left their diabetic, open sore ridden and immobile grandmother on the couch for months and months, never bothering to move or tend to her. _'They forgot all about her', _he had said, holding his illuminated wand under his chin for dramatic effect. _'After a while, the open flesh on her body accepted the material on the couch as its own, and began to bond with it, and when the authorities finally came...they found her FUSED to the couch!'

_'You're full of shit, Viserus.' That's what I had told him, at the time. In all my years of research and experiments, I had never dabbled into anything involving human flesh bonding with a foreign material, never really given any thought to it at all. Why would I? But, could it...really happen that way? Either way, I knew that if the raw, flayed mess of my back were to get infected, it would be an ugly death indeed. It would be quicker and more merciful to just roll off this plank right now and let the sea take me. And mother of Christ, this side of my skin needs a break from this constant scorching sunlight. There's only one thing left to do... and make it quick, just like ripping off a band-aid._

_I take a deep breath, and then another, and another; holding the last one in my chest._

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

Rrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip. _"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! FUCK! GODDAMNIT!"_

_In one swift motion, I had managed to turn myself over without capsizing the plank. I had also discovered first hand what it must be like to be a wounded and abandoned grandmother slowly fusing to a piece of furniture. Looking down, I could see remnants of my forming scar tissue that had bonded with the wood. I could feel warm trickles of blood mingling with the sweat that was running down my raw, searing back and it was all I could do to breathe as tears of pure agony began to blur my vision. _

_For a half-crazed moment it seemed as if my screams were echoing off of the very sea and sky, as I heard a roaring, tearing sound in the distance, and then my rattled mind registered what it was. A helicopter. I craned my neck upwards so fast that it sent a fresh wave of pain shooting down my skinned back, but nevertheless, there it was, chopping through the sky._

"_HEEEEEEEEYYY!"_

_I desperately began to wave my arms, but every movement I made threatened to overturn the plank._

"_HELP ME! PLEEEEAAASE!"_

_The chopper was directly above my head but showed no signs of slowing. I shifted my weight left and managed to pivot the driftwood 180 degrees._

"_HEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLP!"_

_It was no use. The helicopter was well on it's way across the horizon and I had no means of gaining the attention of its pilot. And I was on a piece of driftwood, in the middle of open ocean, thousands of miles off the coast of...wherever this was, burnt to a crisp, without food or water, and I couldn't swim. This is what it means to be fucked. Wholly, sincerely, and completely. Breathing heavily, I curled my burnt hands into fists and gazed out into the sky, towards a mercilessly hot sun and an uncaring God._

"_Why?", It was the only word my dry, cracked lips could form in this given set of circumstances. "WHY!?", I pounded the driftwood with my fist as fury and desperation overtook me. "WHHHHHYYYYYYY!?", I pounded with both fists, then felt my heart stop as the plank nearly toppled. Hyperventilating and wide-eyed, I froze, silently saying every prayer I knew until the plank leveled out once more. I sunk back down flat on my stomach, trembling. There wasn't the vaguest sight of land in any direction. Just blue, as far as the eye could see. So much blue it was hard to tell where the sea ended and the sky began._

_I suppose this is where most men would reflect, wondering what in the cruel, unforgiving world they could have done to deserve such a fate. In my case, however, the point was moot. Any level-headed soul that knew my story probably couldn't write a more fitting ending for it themselves. Above, God must have been weeping with laughter. Below, the devil was setting aside a room for me in Hell. Here on Earth, every nerve ending I had was crying in agony and my corpse would never be found. _

_All of a sudden, the cobalt waves looked rather inviting. _Just 5 minutes of suffocation, 5 minutes and the pain would be over... _I let the fingers of my left hand dangle over the driftwood. The water was surprisingly luke-warmish to the touch, unlike the Pacific, which I had been accustomed to. I brought my face closer to the surface of the deep blue, tasting the scent of the salty waves, and then...my eyes happened to lock on the inkwork of the skull and snake which had been tattooed on my left forearm. _

_That motherfucker is prancing around in my crown right now, isn't he?_

_The thought was enough to numb my screaming flesh. I could see him in my mind's eye, as clear as the sky overhead; his crooked, snaggletoothed, idiotic grin threatening to split his obtuse, overly round, shaven-bald head. A face so happy and content to be that much closer to Tom Riddle's asshole now that the seat at his right hand was empty. The seat of a King now occupied with an over-eager slave. The Death Eaters had about one brain cell in which they shared between themselves, but it was always Mulciber who seemed determined to style himself as the craftiest. Crafty enough even to almost rid the world of Severus Amadeus Snape._

_Almost. _

_This is not how, or where it ends. This CAN'T be how it ends. I'm far from done. A pawn shall not interfere in a battle between Kings._

…_..._

The screen of heavy smog that was the horizon of Spinner's End began to fade from black to a sooty, dark gray at dawn's first light. A river the color of road mud led to a silhouette of row houses, seedy businesses, an old church, and towering at the center of it all, the nuclear power plant, which belched fresh poison into the sky. In an alleyway alongside the Railview Hotel, a vagabond screamed.

"EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER BEEN TAUGHT BY MODERN PSYCHIATRY IS WRONG! BIOLOGY DOES NOT EXIST! UNLOCK THE SECRETS OF YOUR MIND! YOUR POTENTIAL IS LIMITLESS!"

Eileen's eyes shot open and fell upon the clock at the bedside table. _5:00 a.m. Goddamnit. Every thrice-be-damned morning... _Still half-asleep, she rolled out of bed and strode over to the window.

"YOUR SOUL POSSESSES POWER BEYOND MAN'S WILDEST DREAMS! FREE YOURSELF OF YOUR CORPOREAL PRISON! ASCEND TO A HIGHER PLA-"

"JON!"

The tan-skinned gypsy ceased his bellowing and spun on his heel, his golden eyes, one of which was tattooed over with a curved, black line, regarded Eileen with excitement. "Eileen! My queen! My sweetest little dream! For what angel in heaven smiles down upon me that a vision of such beauty should speak my name?" His heavy French accent seasoned his words with a melodic ring.

"Cut the shit, Jon. Do you have any idea what time it is?", She spoke through clenched teeth.

"But of course! It is time we STOLE BACK THE POWER OF OUR INFINITE CONSCIOUSNESS FROM OUR MASTERS! IT IS TIME WE BROKE THE CHAINS OF MENTAL SLAVERY TO THE OVERLORD! I, HONEST JON, WILL SHOW YOU HOW!", He waved his fists in an exaggerated gesture.

Eileen held her aching head in her hands and tried to fend off the migraine that was slowly forming as the lunatic before her, dressed in filthy rags so mismatched it could pass for a jester's motley, grabbed a book out of the shopping cart he was pushing around and began to read:

"THIS EARTH IS NOTHING MORE THAN A PRISON PLANET! HUMANITY'S LIMITATIONS ARE NAUGHT MORE THAN AN ILLUSION PERPETUATED BY THE OVERLORD!"

"Jon!", His mouth snapped shut immediately once he saw the gold coins on her palm. He bent forward to take them, bringing himself so close to her that she could smell the filth and grime of all the baths he didn't take. When he outstretched his hand, she retracted hers. "You'll have this on one condition. I'm sure that your scripture is nothing short of fascinating. But, get it through your head, Honest Jon, that I have a young child in this room, and neither he nor I care to be awoken at ungodly hours by your incessant shouting. So, either you start your morning routine elsewhere, or I call the cops. Again."

For a split second, something very ugly flashed through the features of Honest Jon. When his usual mask of joviality fell, it revealed a visage as cold and trenchant as the acid rain that so often poured over the town. Before she could blink though, his plastic smile was once again beaming down at her.

"As you wish, _mademoiselle_.", He bowed low, sending a strand of greasy, salt-and-pepper hair falling over his eye. She tossed the coins his way. He picked them up and produced a pen from his pocket. "For your generosity, my sweet, an autographed copy of my book, just for you!" She managed to feign a polite enough smile as he scrawled his name on one of the tomes in his shopping cart and handed it to her. "_Au revoir, salope_.", He flashed her a charming grin and was on his way.

Sighing, she closed the window and collapsed back onto her threadbare twin bed. The cover art on the book depicted a scene that wouldn't look out of place in a cheezy science fiction movie. A giant, menacing space alien pulled on leashes which were attached to naked human beings crawling on all fours. Behind the alien, a volcano was erupting, spewing hot lava into the heavens. Sins of the Puppet Master was printed at the top, in large, loud, block letters. Inscribed on the inside of the cover, in gaudy cursive, was: _To my sweet Eileen, may the light of truth illuminate you always. Yours truly, R. Jon Delacour_. She laid the book aside on the table and ran her fingers through her long, ebony hair. Her fingers caught on tangles from a fitful night's sleep. When she rested her head back on her pillow, however, she found sleep would not come. Goddamn that bloody lunatic. She turned to the bed next to her, where a tiny lump under the cheap, tacky comforters snored softly.

It had been one month since she fled Germany, and yesterday had been the first evening Viserus had gone to bed without fuss nor tears. As of late, the child truly did begin to level out emotionally. While he was still miles away from his old, bouncy, smiling self, he was slowly but surely showing signs of accepting the situation around him. His daily inquiries of 'When are we going back to Grandma's?' had dropped from about fifteen per day to five. His suicide attempts, which consisted of stomping his little feet and shouting 'Take us back to Grandma's or I'll hold my breath until I die!', had receded to about three per week, and he would give up, gasping, sooner every time. She had even heard laughter from the boy's lips for the first time in four weeks just the other day. They had been in the lobby ordering fresh towels, when the innkeep, Mrs. Snape, had bent over to pick up a fallen pen and broke wind quite loudly.

In addition, she had neither seen nor heard of any sign of her father, Aunt Jenny, or anyone connected with the Prince family at all since leaving. A mischievous side of her would always wonder what sort of temper tantrum her father must have thrown after she had left him bleeding and humiliated in the street of her old home. She had also often found herself trying to imagine what the look on her Aunt Jenny's face must have been when she came home to find that her son had taken a one way trip to Cloud 9 and would never be coming back. Most of all, she wondered what it must have felt like for them, to have to accept that in the end, she had won. Her and Viserus would never again be their pawns to control, and if there was one thing her father couldn't abide, it was losing control.

Everything so far was going according to plan, except for one thing: They were slowly but steadily going broke. Between hotel fare, food, and other odds and ends, money was draining and none was coming in. One of the first things Eileen had done upon her arrival to Spinner's End was send an owl to old Professor Slughorn back at Hogwarts, asking if he could pull any favors for his proclaimed 'best potion brewer of 1949'. His response was short and sweet: 'I do wish I could help you, but I'm afraid I see hundreds of students come and go each year and your name doesn't ring a bell. Have a nice day!' That answered that question. From there, she hit the classifieds, applying to apothecaries, alchemical research facilities, and all sorts of healers' offices in need of a potion brewer. Optimistic as she was in the beginning, her hopes steadily began to fall when after every interview she was presented with the same damning words: 'Sorry dear, but we're looking for someone with a bit more experience.' That phrase was becoming more and more like a punch to the gut every time.

Since sleep was no longer an option, she figured she may as well start the day. Lighting a cigarette, she stepped into the bathroom and started up the shower, undressing while she waited for the water to get steaming hot. When she stepped in, the combination of nicotine and piping hot water running down her back and untying every knot in her tense, aching shoulders was nothing short of heaven. She dragged deep on the cig, and began to visualize and mentally rehearse what she'd say at today's interview. She breathed a little easier, knowing that the expected qualifications for this place would be minimal at best. It was a little mom and pop type trinket shop located on Knockturn Alley called Borgin and Burkes. As much as she felt the position was beneath her, she supposed she would have to swallow her pride and bear it, for she was quickly running out of options. For a split second, the ever smug face of her father appeared in her mind's eye. _'You'll be penniless and whoring your body on the street, and believe me princess, syphilis is no picnic.'_ God, how he always smiled when he said that...

She quickly shook it off and went to fetch Viserus for his shower.

When the clock struck noon, Eileen smoothed out her black, business casual dress and grabbed the floo powder she kept on the table. Taking a reluctant Viserus by the hand, she made her way down the corridor to the lobby, which managed to be poorly lit even at midday. The scents of other guest's cooking mingled and melded together into one noxious cloud of salt and grease. Her interview was not until one, but she preferred to use the lobby fireplace when she knew the hotel was at its emptiest. Mrs. Snape was in her upstairs apartment eating lunch, her son was off working at wherever he worked, and the rest of the staff was out on break. The only sounds that could be heard were the footsteps from upstairs, an infant's wailing, and the couple that stayed in room 42, who seemed to be in a constant state of near-violent argument.

"Now Viserus, I don't want to hear any word from Mrs. Greene about you bothering the girls today, am I clear?", She warned her son.

"But _Mom_, I don't _wanna_ go to stupid daycare! It's just a bunch of stupid babies! They don't even have TV.", The boy crossed his little arms over his chest and stomped his feet.

"Well I'm sorry that I can't take you with me, but this is grown-up business. How about this, if you behave for Mrs. Greene today I'll take you to Florean's after. Do we have a deal?"

He looked up at her with wary eyes, trying hard to conceal his inticement. "Fine.", He murmured quietly.

"Alright then, are you ready?" He nodded. She reached into the bag of floo powder, taking out enough for the both of them and knelt in front of the flames.

"I could round up some more firewood if you like!"

She screamed and whirled around, her fistful of floo powder flying everywhere and her heart jumping into her throat. She was met with the confused features of Tobias Snape.

"Didn't mean to scare you there, sweetheart.", He smiled softly. He donned a hard hat and a plain blue jumpsuit style uniform. Embroidered on the left side of his chest was a symbol resembling an atom, under which read: _'Cokeworth Energy'._

"It's alright, I just...didn't expect anyone to be here. Aren't you usually working around now?"

"Meh, the big wigs up in management sent everyone home. Something about a leak in the reactor, yet again.", He rolled his eyes in annoyance.

"Are you...sure that's safe? I mean, for everyone around here?"

"Well of course it's safe! Nuclear energy is just about the safest darn thing there is. They tell us at the plant at least every other day. You ain't got nothin' to worry about, darlin'." His blue eyes lit up as he smiled and rubbed her on the shoulder as a friendly gesture.

Judging from the acid rain which frequently fell over town and some of the bizarrely deformed animals she occasionally spied wandering the streets, she severely doubted his words. Oh, but she did love it when he called her 'darlin'. She could not deny that. "So, how long until the leak is fixed?", She asked conversationally.

"They say it should be all patched up in two or three days. So, I guess I'll just be cooling my heels until then.", He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his feet. "Say, you never did have someone show you a proper tour of our here town, now did ya?", He perked up.

"No...no, I suppose not."

"Well uh, it looks like I ain't got nothin' on the ol' to do list for the next couple of days. What do you say we paint the town red?"

"I have somewhere to be until around two-thirty, but...after that I'm free- oh-", She looked down towards Viserus at her feet, who was impatiently waiting for the grown-ups to get done talking. "I'm afraid it would be impossible to flag a sitter down on such short notice."

"Nonsense! My Mah could watch the little feller."

"Oh, I couldn't bear to trouble her."

"No trouble at all, she loves kids. The old bat won't quit yammerin' that it's high time I gave her some grandbabies.", He chuckled.

She knelt to Viserus' level. "Would it be okay if you stayed with Mrs. Snape when we got back?"

At first he furrowed his little eyebrows at her, but then his features shifted to a look of neutrality. "Does she have a TV?"

"You bet your bottom she does, little feller. Fifteen whole channels too.", Tobias said, ruffling Viserus' hair.

Viserus shrugged. "Okay."

Tobias turned back to Eileen. "Well then, I guess I'll be meetin' you back around here at say, three?"

"Yes, that'll be fine.", She smiled and felt warmth rise in her cheeks.

"It's a date then.", He grinned and tipped his hat to her slightly in a cowboy-ish gesture that made her cheeks flush all the more.

"Tobeh! Is that you down there? I think the stove up here is busted again, Tobeh! Can ya help me out?", Mrs. Snape suddenly called from upstairs.

Toby rolled his eyes. "I better tend to Mah before she done ruptures herself. I'll see you at three, darlin'." He waved and took the stairs two at a time.

Eileen simply stood still for a moment, grinning as she began to feel butterflies tickle her stomach. A sensation foreign to her for over a decade.

"Are we gonna get going?", Viserus asked, trying his best to remain polite.

She was so caught up in her own giddiness she had forgotten he was standing there, and that she had places to go and people to see. With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, she took Viserus by the hand and transported them through the fireplace.

**A/N: Special thanks to Professor Radar for the wonderful reviews, to HwaseungOz as well for the critique. Short chapter, I know, but it just felt like a good place to end it. Spinner's End is a very easy and fun place to write about when you live in Jersey, they're very similar. This story is also up on Wattpad and DeviantArt under the same name with "illustrations", and by illustrations I mean shit that I threw together in MS paint, but they're there if anyone wants a visual aid as to what Dr. Prince or my interpretations of other characters look like, as well as scenes from the story. Hope everyone is enjoying so far, stay classy, stay true to your Grandpa, rest well, and dream of large women.**


	5. Have A Cigar

"**If you're going to do something, do it well, and leave something witchy." -Charles Manson**

"_HIDEY HO, KIDS!"_

"_Hidey ho, Weebo..."_

"_I can't hear yooou!"_

"_HIDEY HO, WEEBO!",_ _There lies a strange undertone of uneasiness just below the surface of the childrens' shouts. It's then that an out of tune piano starts to play a jaunty yet discordant tune, and Avery, dressed from head to toe in star spangled motley, begins to sing._

"_Ooooooh, I'm Weebo the Wacky Wizard, _

_And we're here to have some fun!_

_When it comes to making magic,_

_I know every trick under the sun!_

_Watch me walk through solid concrete,_

_Or make a table float._

_Watch me break out of a lockbox,_

_Or hypnotize a goat!_

_I can pull a rabbit out of my hat,_

_Or a coin out of your ear!_

_And if you're a really special kid,_

_I can make you disappear!"_

_The music died down and the camera zoomed in on Weeb- Avery, who turned to face his audience. They looked all to be between the ages of four and ten. I took a sip of scotch. _

"_Today, we're going to be doing some card tricks! Now which one of you boys and girls wants to be my first volunteer?"_

_The camera pans to the children, who are fidgeting nervously in their seats. Two little girls exchange apprehensive glances. Not a single one of them looks at ease, let alone excited. There's something off about this..._

"_How about you, Billy!" _

_Avery seizes the young boy by his arm and pulls him to the center of the set before he has a chance to respond. The child's head lolls forward slightly and he seems to be unsteady on his feet, struggling to keep his balance._

"_Pick a card, Billy, any card."_

_The camera zooms in on the boy and I can see his face. His eyelids droop and flutter in a struggle to stay ajar. He reaches a limp fingered hand out to the card deck, his motion sloppy and uncoordinated, as if he's been drugged..._

"_Hey, Severus.", I turn away from the television and flinch backwards, slightly startled. Avery never did understand the concept of personal space. I slide my chair over, putting a distance between the two of us. A distance I feel is comfortable enough for me to engage a man who dances in costume and calls himself Weebo._

"_I've got all the goods right here. Maya's extra sweet tonight.", He hands me a zip-lock bag filled with a shockingly blue herb, unlike anything that would be found in nature. I crack open the bag slightly and give it a whiff. It's the real thing, as ever. A gram of blue maya, easily one of the most difficult to cultivate herbs on the face of the Earth. As much as I desired to control every aspect of the potions I made, I just did not have the time nor the patience for the intricacies of horticulture. It was simply more efficient to either purchase them or delegate the task to someone else._

"_Do you want to see my dollhouse?"_

_I looked up at Avery, thinking I must have been hearing things."...Excuse me?"_

"_Would you like to come with me...to my dollhouse?"_

_I had actually heard him correctly. A moment of silence passed over the two of us. The dim lighting of the trailer glared off of his oversized, wire frame glasses. Below his ginger mustache, a crooked smile of brown, rotting teeth slowly bloomed. The only sound that could be heard was the unsettlingly off-beat whimsy coming from the television. Across the screen, the crawling silhouette of a cockroach could be seen. I drained my scotch glass in one, deep gulp._

"_There's really...nothing else quite like it. It's beautiful, Severus. You seem like a man who can appreciate...unique things. Would you like to see it?", He spoke in little more than a whisper._

_I could have said no. Among the myriad of pervasive, chiding, mocking, shaming, screaming regrets that would haunt my broken psyche for life, that one would always be near the top of my list. I could have said no that night. I could have...but not would have. I was the man that clogged up the highway going five miles an hour with his head turned so he could catch a glimpse of meat in a hideous car wreck. I was the man that watched Quidditch matches solely for the accidents. I was the man who's heart leaped at the sight of crime scene tape. I was not a man who thought that there would come a day when he got more than he bargained for in the realm of the obscene. Never did I think that when it came to morbidity, a time would come when I would bite off more than I could chew._

_My better judgment tells me no, but my scintillating curiosity and burning hunger for the macabre says_

"_Yes. Fine. Show me this thing."_

_Avery breathes more heavily as his smile widens. "Follow me outside."_

"_It's outside?"_

"_Yes. It's only a few m-miles down the – down the t-trail in the woods out b-back.", He was becoming so over-excited that he began hyperventilating and tripping over his words. I had a strong inkling that I was the first person to ever agree to this. It wasn't every day that a grown man consented to seeing another grown man's 'dollhouse'._

_I threw on my black cloak and followed him out the back door of his RV to a moonless winter night. Reflecting in the light of Avery's wand, a rusted, orange, 'NO HUNTING' sign with several bullet holes through it shone, posted on a telephone pole. Beyond that, hardly visible in the darkness, a narrow, dirt trail cut through dense woods. It was difficult to make out anything beyond the small scope of light that Avery's wand cast and the trail was an obstacle course of snaking, stray tree roots, holes, and the occasional broken glass. I was forced to stay closer to the man than I liked. For a time, the only sound was that of our footsteps, and Avery's heaving, overstimulated breaths. _

"_So, you collect dolls, I assume?", I finally asked conversationally. _

"_Oh y-yes. Lovely, darling little dolls. I've coll-collected so many over the years. They're p-perfect.", His shoulders became more hunched and his hands began to shake slightly. He started muttering unintelligibly under his breath, so quietly I couldn't make out a word he said. I really didn't want to converse with the man any further. I began to think back to last week. _

"Avery is getting worse."

That was all Tom Riddle had said. It was at the same time a statement and a request. Someone needed to keep an eye on him, and I was the one to be commissioned for the job. As of late, he could be seen more often than not simply lost in God knows whatever went on in his own head, face locked in a thousand yard stare, muttering to himself and rocking back and forth. His skin was becoming even paler than my own and his ginger comb-over had thinned dramatically, along with his body. There were even times when he could be heard softly singing the theme song to the kiddie show he hosted...in empty rooms, with no one around to hear. He had also become sloppy and unfocused. Fortunately enough, he still managed to grow me the rare herbs I needed and make himself useful enough to me, but he just wasn't cutting it for Tommy anymore. He was a good enough dog, in his day, but even the best dogs needed to be...put down, sometimes. It truly would be a pity if it came to that, not everyone could grow blue maya.

_No sooner did I think of it that Avery began to half whisper, half sing:_

"_Ooooooh, I'm Weebo the W-Wacky Wizard, _

_And w-we're here to have some fun..._

_When it c-c-comes to making m-magic,_

_I know every -heh heh- trick under the sun..."_

_At this point, I daresay that a cold pang of uneasiness crept into me. I wasn't even sure at that point if Avery knew I was there anymore as I caught a sidelong glance of his blank, practically bloodless face. The woods seemed to feel unnaturally still around me as I followed the quavering light source. My imagination began to project shapes in the surrounding blackness when I would peer into it. Like a reflex, I buried my hand in my cloak pocket and wrapped it around the steel inside. _

"_Watch me w-w-walk through -heh heh heh- solid con-concrete,_

_Or make a t-table float..._

_Watch me b-break out of a lockbox,_

_Or hyp-hypnotize a goat...heh heh"_

_I could feel my heart beginning to beat faster. We were several miles from any sort of civilization at this point and Avery's melodic whispers and deranged giggles were gnawing at my already on-edge nerves. I didn't know what to say to the man at this point. I just looked on in biting discomfort as he appeared to become more and more unhinged, simply unraveling before me. Lying on the ground beside me I spied something bright yellow. Curious, I picked it up and held it close to the light of Avery's wand. It was a picket sign that had been unearthed from the ground and tossed aside. It read in all capital letters: 'CONDEMNED PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING.'_

"_I can -heh heh- pull a rabbit out of my hat,_

_Or a c-coin out of your ear..._

_There was a small clearing I noticed to my left, and the light reflected off of something shiny. Broken glass. A sooty pile of stones and sticks lay in the center of a semi-circle of logs. Vials...what looked like empty potion vials, some in-tact, others smashed to pieces, lay littered around what must have been a campsite. Amidst the glass, turned on its side, lay a discarded little buckle shoe..._

"_And if you're a really spe-special kid,_

_I can make you disappear..."_

_I felt my fingers turn to ice as the pieces wove themselves together in my head. I suddenly felt his hand on my shoulder and gasped sharply. _

"_Do you know what I like best about dolls, Severus?"_

_His blue eyes bore unblinkingly into mine and his face began to twitch. "What?"_

"_They stay tiny and perfect..._forever._"_

"_Avery...what did you do?"_

"_We're here."_

_I broke his maniacal gaze and looked ahead. In a wide clearing of trees there stood an abandoned two-story house, half taken back to nature by snaking, mossy vines, mold, and filth. It appeared to have been white...at some point. I squinted, trying to examine it in more detail through the darkness. Avery led me to the porch and produced a small key from his pocket. His hand was trembling so severely he could barely manage to insert it in the lock. _

"_Avery...what the hell do you have in there?"_

"_P-p-promise you won't t-tell anyone. This will be...our secret."_

_Without another word, he turned the key and opened the rotting door, the rusted hinges letting out a shrill shriek into the night. He stepped into the blackness beyond the threshold and I followed._

_I will remember the way it smelled until my dying breath..._

…_..._

The baking heat of the summer sun beat down through a cloudless sky on the hustle and bustle of Diagon Alley. The winding, narrow streets were packed with rowdy, overstimulated adolescents getting a jump on their back to school shopping. On the curb outside of Ollivander's, three boys sat comparing wand sizes. Across the street, a young girl fawned and fussed over her new brilliantly white snow owl. Strolling down the sidewalk, Eileen Prince held her son's hand, lost in a memory.

"_You're joking! He couldn't have possibly made it through the whole thing!", Eileen had said through gales of laughter._

"_Well, he did, and by God if his face wasn't greener than a frog's asshole when he was done with it. Then I told him I'd give him five more reichsmarks if he ate the other one."_

_Eileen playfully slapped him on the shoulder. "Max, you are absolutely terrible, do you know that?"_

"_And you are absolutely beautiful.", He gently cupped her chin in his hand, locking her eyes on to his._

"_There it is.", He whispered._

"_What?"_

"_Your smile. It's something you don't do nearly enough."_

"_Why is it that everyone always says girls should smile all the time?", She rolled her eyes, a mock-annoyed expression on her face._

"_I actually don't think that at all, I feel quite the opposite. Your smile is so lovely because it's rare. You walk around so cross and sullen all the time that when you do smile, you practically look like a different person. It's so rare and special I feel as if it's only for me."_

"_If I smiled often, then it wouldn't be rare anymore. Why would you want that?, She tilted her head to the side._

_He moved his face closer to hers. "Because I'm greedy."_

_Without another word, he pressed his lips to hers and she reciprocated without a second thought. An aggressive tongue slid its way into an eager mouth. Muggle or not, it was the most magical thing she had ever felt. He ran his fingers through her shimmering midnight hair, raking his nails along her neck, her back, and then her rear end, where they lingered. _

_She was so lost to bliss she never even heard Dr. Prince enter the room._

"Mom!"

"What!?", She asked too loudly, startled out of her reverie.

"We passed Mrs. Greene's."

"Oh..."

She walked him back a few paces to a small building painted in obnoxiously clashing primary colors. In the window, she could see toddlers romping with abandon inside a large ball pit. When they stepped inside, she knelt down to her son's level and once again bid him to behave well before he disappeared into the horde of screaming children.

Knockturn Alley teemed with a very different sort of crowd. The moment she turned the shadowy corner, she was nearly knocked to her feet by a large, burly, bald-shaven man walking at an overly-brisk pace.

"Watch where you're going, _slut!_", He growled under his breath.

Eileen merely rolled her eyes and kept walking. Half hidden by discarded wooden crates, a mangy, filthy looking dog huddled and growled protectively over a slab of rancid meat. Up ahead, a hunchbacked, bearded old man wildly flailed a brass bell up and down and bellowed the word of God.

"WE ALL, LIKE SHEEP, HAVE GONE ASTRAY! EACH OF US HAS TURNED TO HIS OWN WAY! AND THE LORD HAS LAID ON HIM THE INIQUITY OF US ALL! DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT YOUR BODY IS A TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, WHO IS IN YOU, WHOM YOU HAVE RECIEVED FROM GOD? YOU ARE NOT YOUR OWN-"

She gasped as the preacher clutched her arm when she closed the distance between them. He shifted his eyes and held his hand over the side of his mouth, whispering so only she could hear.

"Lady, I got heroin. 20 galleons a bag. Best China White at the best price, you won't find a better deal."

His breath smelled like battery acid. "Thanks...but no thanks.", She pulled her arm free and quickened her step while the preacher continued his ringing and screaming. On a rusty bench a few paces forward a thin man all but consumed a woman's flesh with his tongue, her lacy blouse open and her breasts exposed to the wind, moaning and rocking her hips out in the open without a care. Adjacent to the lovers, the gaudy, bright purple and scarlet neon sign for Borgin and Burkes hung overhead. Eileen smoothed her dress, took a deep breath and stepped inside.

A dusty, cobwebbed, 4-bulb chandelier provided just enough lighting for the quaint little curiosity shop. At the front desk, a radio provided ambient music for the store. The current song playing happened to be Pink Floyd's _Have a Cigar._ Eileen took a moment to examine some of the items on the shelves. It was your typical fly-by-night wizard's fare: Various books on the dark arts and miscellaneous how-to guides relating to the nefarious, including _Everything You Wanted to Know About the Unforgivables but Were Afraid to Ask, Horcruxes? More Like Bore-cruxes! Try This Weird Trick and Avoid Splitting Your Soul!, and Keeping it in the Family: The Ultimate Guide to Dating Your Relatives. _Racks upon racks of potions lined the walls. Some were poisons, some enhancers, some "legal" alternatives to street drugs that would most likely make you go blind. Locked behind showcases were a plethora of magical artifacts, each bearing a plaque with a short summary of its history. Not wanting to waste too much time, however, she proceeded straight to the front desk, which was currently unoccupied. She lightly tapped the bell for service.

_Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar._

Carried on porcelain bare feet, he seemed to glide out of the back room. His elegant, violet robes flowing behind him as he walked coupled with the warm, charming smile he greeted her with made him all but glow when he entered the room. The man couldn't have been a day over 19 and he looked at her with the deepest cobalt eyes she had ever seen. Atop his well-groomed, dark brown hair rested a curious looking woven crown of thorns.

"What can I do you for, my Lady?", His voice flowed from his lips in a soft, honeyed melody.

_You're gonna go far, you're gonna fly high..._

"I'm here for an interview with Caractacus Burke. My name is Eileen Prince."

"Eileen Prince...", He narrowed his eyes and slowly raised his index finger, as if he were digging for a thought. "Ah!", He snapped his fingers and pointed at her, eyes wide and smiling. "Now how does it go again..._And so he rode, and so he rode, the King that knew no fear. From North to South, to East to West, until the death screams were heard by every ear..."_

Had she been caught any more off-guard, her bladder would have let go then and there.

"That's how it goes, isn't it? The _Ballad of Severus The Conqueror_? You are of the Prince royal family, are you not?"

"I-I-I have no idea what you're talking about.", She was sure the fear in her voice betrayed her. The room suddenly felt suffocatingly small around her. She wished for nothing more than to run out the door at full speed.

"Really? I always assumed there was only one Prince bloodline in the wizarding world. Ah well, I stand corrected and embarrassed, I suppose.", He dipped his head slightly and chuckled to himself. "Anyway, where are my manners? I'm Tom. Tom Riddle.", He extended his hand to her.

_You're never gonna die, you're gonna make it if you try; they're gonna love you..._

Reluctantly, she took it. His skin was supple and cold. Very cold. As much as she wanted to run, she knew she wouldn't breathe easy until she knew exactly who this man was and what he knew about her family.

"Out of curiosity, Tom, what was that song you were just singing?", She asked him, trying her damnest to maintain an impassable poker face.

"_The Ballad of Severus The Conqueror?", _Why it's the song of the ancient ancestor to the Prince family – the one I had in mind, anyway. Brutal wizard, he was. Thousands of years ago he ruled the wizarding world with an iron fist. Some historians even speculate that it was he who invented the killing curse.", The more he spoke of it, the wider his smile grew, yet his voice remained amiable and reserved. "I'll somewhat embarrassedly admit, I played at being him when I was a boy, swinging around a wooden sword and wearing a paper crown."

_Well I've had a deep respect, and I mean that most sincerely..._

"Must have been fun."

"It wasn't for the other kids.", He tittered. There was something about the sound of his laughter that set Eileen's teeth on edge. It was laced with a high-pitched iciness, much like a drill or knives being scraped together.

_The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. Oh by the way, which one's Pink?_

She yelped and jumped as all of a sudden she felt something cold and sleek slither across her ankle.

"It seems my pet is feeling a tad left out.", He smiled warmly.

She looked down to find a large, diamond backed rattlesnake looking at her with it's head cocked to the side like a scaly dog.

"It's alright, you can pet her if you like, she doesn't bite."

Despite the warmth in his voice and the sparkle in his eyes, Eileen somehow doubted that. Nonetheless, she dipped her knees slightly and gave the snake a light pat on the head.

"You know, I find it difficult to believe that you're not related to the royal family of Prince."

_And did we tell you the name of the game, boy? We call it riding the Gravy Train..._

Her heart froze in her chest and the blood in her veins turned to acid.

"I mean, if I were you, I'd look into my lineage a bit. You might just find yourself a princess, never even having been aware of it. Fantastic surprise that would be, wouldn't it? You certainly wouldn't be needing to take a job in this old hole in the wall if that were the case. After all, I don't think I've ever heard of a stray Prince.", His voice and demeanor betrayed nothing. He dripped charm and oozed grace, yet there was a trace of something far less kosher lurking beneath the surface.

_We're just knocked out. We heard about the sell out, you gotta get an album out..._

"And how is it that you know everyone in the wizarding community?", She asked, trying to keep the edge out of her voice as well as she could.

"I make it my business to.", He replied, casual as day.

"Well, I doubt it, and I'd rather not get my hopes up."

"That's too bad, then. I hear those lucky bastards are in good with the Studworths. What I wouldn't give to be rubbing elbows with them. Merlin knows, I've tried."

_You owe it to the people. We're so happy we can hardly count..._

"What else can you tell me about these people?", _If the Studworths even gave this boy the time of day he's close enough to my family to destroy me..._

"To my sadness, not much firsthand."

She breathed a sigh of relief, hoping he didn't take notice.

"Though...I'd give just about anything to meet The Doctor. There's simply no potion crafter out there who is his equal. I was lucky enough to score a copy of some of his notes, and I don't even want to admit how much I paid for them. Of course, I'm all thumbs when it comes to alchemy. I attempted to craft some Xenochrome A and it turned into an absolute mess.", He said it with the carefree ease of someone discussing a recipe for apple pie.

_Everybody else is just green, have you seen the chart?_

"And how...would you have acquired the necessary ingredients for Xenochrome A?", She tried yet failed to keep a reproachful tone out of her voice.

"And what on Earth would you know about the making of Xenochrome A, Miss Prince who's not a Prince?", He raised an eyebrow at her, smirking in satisfaction. He was on the brink of catching her in her lie...or had he already caught her?

Eileen's discomfort at this point was palpable. She was locked in a game of chess with words against this eccentric and frightening boy and she was losing. She decided to change the subject.

"Why do you wear that crown of thorns? Are you an associate of the preacher outside, perchance?"

His features lightened and he laughed out loud. "Oh heavens, no. However, I do feel it's about time the wizarding world had a messenger of its own."

"And is that supposed to be you?"

"Perhaps. There are some who look to me as a Lord.", As pompous as it sounded, he uttered the words with earnest indifference.

_It's a helluva start, it could be made into a monster, if we all pull together as a team..._

She honestly didn't know what to say to that. "It must get terribly uncomfortable, wearing that all day."

"A crown should never be worn easily.", He remarked, cobalt eyes glittering.

_And did we tell you the name of the game, boy? We call it riding the Gravy Train- _

_SCREEEEEEAAAAAAARCH SCREEEEEAAAAAAARCH!_

The both of them turned around startled when the radio began to emit hideous buzzing noises.

_SCREEEEEEAAAAAAARCH SCREEEEEAAAAAAARCH!_

_Alpha. Yankee. Foxtrot. Alpha. Yankee. Foxtrot. Three. Nine. Seven. One. Five. Three. Nine. Seven. One. Five..._

"Bloody hell, not this again.", He walked over to the radio and reached to change the station.

"Wait!"

He turned and looked at her, perplexed.

"That sound, those numbers...I feel like I've heard them somewhere before...", She turned her eyes to the floor, searching her memory, sifting through an assortment of broken images -_I want everything- _but it yielded no connections. "Do you know anything about them? Do you know what they are?"

"No one does.", He answered flatly. "They broadcast at random. It's some sort of code that nobody seems to be able to crack. Some say they're utilized by spies to discreetly transmit information. It's unknown whether they're used by muggles, wizards, or both. My pet theory is that it's a method of communication for remaining fugitive Nazis."

Her eyes shot up at him all too quickly, as she could tell by his sly, knowing grin.

"Not that you'd have to worry about that, Miss Prince that's not a Prince."

"Damn it, Riddle! Will ya quit ear fuckin' the poor girl!"

A scraggly, pot-bellied man who she could only assume to be Mr. Burke came tromping out of the back room. "I was supposed to be interviewing the lady 15 minutes ago!"

Tom Riddle put his forearm over his waist and bowed low. "My apologies. I became so caught up in her charms that I simply let time get away from me. She's an interesting one, Burke, you aught not to let her slip away.", He shot her a final coy glance.

"Alright, let's get on with this.", Mr. Burke said gruffly, ushering her inside the back room.

Eileen found she had no pre-interview jitters in the face of the relief she felt just to be away from that barefoot, thorn crowned, smiling boy.

An hour later she sat with Viserus at a table outside of Florean's, as she promised him. The boy eagerly licked away at a rainbow snow cone. For herself, she ordered nothing. She merely sat in silence, examining her hands and trying to block out the conversation she shared with Tom Riddle, which was playing on an endless loop inside her head. Now and then, she would nervously look over her shoulder , thinking she spied a flash of purple robes.

"Mom, are you okay?", His small features scrunched into a quizzical expression.

"I'm fine, sweetling. I'm fine.", She reassured him, lying through her teeth.

When they arrived back at the hotel room, Eileen changed into a more casual, form fitting yet modest blue strapped dress. Viserus was already tucked safely away upstairs, in front of Mrs. Snape's television set. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror, applying makeup to her face. It had been so long since she used the stuff that she all but forgot what was supposed to go where. When she pressed her lipstick against her mouth, she unavoidably painted sloppy, jagged lines of crimson on and around her lips. Her hands would not cease trembling. She was powerless to stop the barrage of 'what ifs?' that scratched at the back of her skull and caused her heart to pound. With a sigh of resignation, she opened the medicine cabinet, popped a quaalude, then strode down the hallway to meet Tobias.

When she stepped into the dingy lobby, an endearing smile lit up the rough spun, five o' clock shadowed features of Tobias Snape. Eileen returned the smile as if it were a reflex. By typical standards, he wasn't a particularly handsome man. His hooked nose was dreadfully large, his teeth sat crooked and uneven in his mouth, and his hands were cut and calloused, yet she couldn't help but be captivated by his raw masculinity and the unadorned sincerity in his face. As he stood there in his jeans, plain t-shirt, and work boots, she mused on what a breath of fresh air it was to meet a man who felt no need to put on airs.

"Well I'll be, ain't you a sight.", His blue-gray eyes looked her up and down approvingly.

He held out his hand to her, and she took it, finding comfort in it's rough warmth. "So, where to first?"

"I figured we'd start at the river and make our way 'round, that way we can hike on down the trail through the woods just at sunset."

Her black eyes glittered. "That sounds absolutely lovely.", she had never pegged him as a romantic.

And so, hand-in-hand they stepped into the sunlight. Usually, one would be more likely to see a unicorn in Spinner's End than a cloudless summer day, but the sun beat down on them nonetheless. Masked in the sparkling glare of the light, the snaking, black river could almost pass for something pretty. She gently slipped her hand out of his and stepped towards it, her footsteps making crunching sounds in the dead grass. She had never gotten a such a close look at the brackish waters before.

"I wouldn't get that close to it if I were you, darlin'-"

"Ah!", By good fortune alone she managed to pull her foot away from the gelatinous feeling substance before it made its way into her shoe. She looked to the ground. Writhing in the brown grass a swarm of maggots fed on what must have once been a fish. The tail of the wretched thing was nothing more than a twisted pile of scale and bone; the head was a sickening mass of monstrous looking growths and tumors. A few feet away was another fish in a similar state, and another, and another. Beyond that, a pile of rot and feathers that was once a duck, and the empty shell of a turtle. Tobias retook her hand and pulled her away from the toxic filth.

"You didn't get anything on you, now did ya?", He asked, concerned.

"No, I didn't. I'm fine.", Out of morbid curiosity, she kept her eyes peeled on the riverbank, seeing how much more mutilated wildlife she could spot.

"The river is somethin' meant to be admired from a distance. Not that it's anythin' worth admiring."

"How on Earth did it get like that?", She asked, half disgusted and half astonished.

Tobias shrugged. "Well, I probably shouldn't be tellin' you this, but eh, the bigwigs down at the plant, you know, them bein' tight asses and all, they're always tryin' to cut corners wherever they darn can...and well...it ain't like the EPA comes around these parts anyhow."

Despite his rambling, Eileen grasped his meaning.

He lit a cigarette and sighed deeply. "If I had any say in anythin' it wouldn't be that way, but I don't."

"Don't they realize how dangerous that is?"

He chuckled. It was a deep, gruff, yet musical sound. She would be lying if she said it did not stir a kindling of warmth between her thighs. "Darlin', I hate to break it to you, but we live in a dump. Civilization ends at the other side of that river." He pointed his cigarette in the direction of the opposite riverbank. "Must be nice to be rich.", He remarked bitterly.

Coming from the life she had lived, in her eyes, the houses on the other side of the natural border of Spinner's End were far from wealthy. In comparison to the side her and Tobias walked, however, they might as well have been palaces to a hundred different kings. She was almost envious of his ignorance. As tedious as the mundane humdrum of working class, muggle life may have been for him, he would never have to know of the corrupt, unprincipled practices and obligations that came with 'status'.

"They're probably all just pretentious prats, anyway.", She offered him a shy, consoling smile. It seemed to please him.

"Maybe, but hey, they must be doing somethin' right."

The memory came to her again, unbidden.

_The blue eyes met the black and her heart froze. She shoved Max off of her so hard he hit the floor on his hands and knees._

_Dr. Prince only smiled. "Max, I think it's time for you to go home now.", He said the words with such gentle courtesy one would take him for a saint, yet the color drained from her lover's face in an instant. _

_The boy found his footing and backed away slowly. He took a breath to speak, but when he looked from her to him, he let it seep out of him in silence. He met her eyes one last time, his face a mix of fear and sorrow and pity, then he left the room and closed the door, leaving her to her father._

"_Daddy...", Her breaths came in short gasps and she bit her trembling lower lip. "Daddy, I'm so sorry-"_

_He held his open palmed hand in front of her and turned away his face, a gesture she had known for the last 13 years to say 'be silent, _now_.' For a terrifying second the only sound that could be heard in the room was her whimpers. _

"_I see you've developed a taste for muggles.", He said it as plainly and emotionless as if 'muggle' were a variety of cake. She said nothing. _

"_Let me ask you something, Eileen."_

_She nodded, trembling._

"_What do you think is of more value, love or strength?", He crossed his arms and cocked his head to the side, never taking his stony blue eyes off of her._

"_I...don't understand.", She tasted the salt of her tears as they rolled down her cheeks, into the corners of her dry lips._

"_It's a simple question, princess. Just answer it honestly."_

"_I...I...I suppose love is more valuable.' _

_He knelt down to his daughter's level and cupped her face in his long, slender fingers, wiping her tears away. Bending forward, he gently pressed his lips against her forehead. "My little doveling...your innocence is so touchingly precious. It just truly is a shame that you'd be so willing to give it away.", His faux-soothing voice was sugar coated venom to her ears. _

"_Daddy, I swear, we weren't-"_

"_Ssshhh, my princess.", He stroked her ebony hair. "It's okay. This is my fault."_

_She looked up at him, red eyed and confused._

"_It appears I have been so preoccupied with my work that I have been neglectful in educating my daughter on the more...important things in life.", He stood up and offered her his hand. She shrank away from it. "Oh come now, princess, I only want to show you something." Like a battered animal, she slowly and warily uncurled her body and let him help her to her feet. _

"_Where are we going?"_

_He grinned like a little boy struggling with every fiber of his being to keep an amusing secret. "You'll see, princess...you'll see."_

"You're wrong.", She lifted the hand that was not intertwined with Tobias' and discreetly wiped a tear from her cheek.

"What do you mean? They got all that cash, nice cushy jobs, and pretty cars don't they?"

"Landing money and power doesn't depend on how 'right' you are, nor how kind you are, nor how just you are, nor how honest you are."

"What does it depend on then?"

She turned her face away from him, so he would not see, so she would not darken the only sunlit day they were apt to share all summer.

"It depends on how ruthless you are. That, and nothing more."

**A/N: Good gravy I had entirely too much fun writing this chapter. I know that this chapter takes place before 'Have A Cigar' was written, but eh, semantics, semantics...A warm thank you to Hiest for the wonderful complement. There will be many more updates where this came from. Hope you all enjoy, and remember, when a man propositions you to see his dollhouse...just...say...no.**


	6. Welcome To The Machine

"**One baby to another says I'm lucky to have met you. I don't care what you think unless it is about me. It is now my duty to completely drain you. A travel through a tube and end up in your infection." -Nirvana, _Drain you_**

"_Look at me."_

_She raises her eyes to mine, as much as she can with the angry black and violet swelling surrounding them. Even with her face looking like it was hit by a freight train, she still manages it. She still manages that sardonic half-scowl, her lips curled into the slightest grin, as if she's always inwardly laughing at some private joke about you._

"_Episkey.", I whisper, and listen to the broken bones and torn cartilage in her nose mend itself back together. I dip a rag into a can of salve on the bedside table and gently spread it over her raccoon-like eyes._

"_I brought you something for the pain if you-"_

"_Save it.", She reaches beside the bed and holds up a bottle of Everclear to my face. "I've provided my own.", Her head falls drunkenly to the crimson silk pillow and she laughs to herself. She'll die laughing; I've told her half a hundred times._

_I breathe in deeply and exhale with a long sigh. "I'm sorry.", The phrase feels like a foreign language on my tongue. 'I'd like to get fucked up the ass by a gryndilow' would feel more natural coming out of my mouth than those two little words._

"_I suppose I'm sorry too.", She shoots the words out quickly, examining a piece of sopping wet hair she's twirling around her finger._

_She supposes. _

_I unfasten the black silk bathrobe she's wearing and push it back, revealing her nakedness. I never could get used to seeing the grotesque rods and chains and shackles that ran through her extremities, but I'm thankful they only occupy the less interesting parts of her body. There are more bruises around her breasts, ribcage and stomach. I feel a sharp pain above my heart and a lingering shame for what I've done, but it's still nothing compared to the Pandora's box that she has so carelessly and selfishly opened. _

"_You're lucky, you know.", I tell her as I spread more salve onto her milk-white flesh._

"_Oh?"_

"_If Grandfather had been the one to catch you, you'd be nothing but a stew of liquified gore swirling in a cauldron right now."_

_She laughs, as always. "I am forever grateful to His Majesty for his gentle heart.", She takes my hands in hers and begins to run her tongue along my knuckles, which are bruised slightly from connecting with her bones so many times. The sensation brings on that ever familiar rush of blood down south. I try as I may to stay focused. _

_I clear my throat. "Can I just ask you one thing?"_

_She slides her body along the silken sheet and closes the distance between us. Allowing her nipples to brush against my chest, she lays her arms around my neck and lets her fingers work their way through my hair, massaging my scalp. She feels my hardness pressed against her and in the darkness I know she's smiling. "What is it?"_

"_Why do you still do it? It can't be about the money anymore, you have more than enough. You could leave it all behind and never look back and still live as a wealthy woman for the rest of your days. Why keep the charade going?"_

_Her body slithers up mine like a snake and I gasp lightly as I feel one of her cold chains brush my skin. No matter how warm she got, a part of her would always feel ice cold. She licks my ear from bottom to top and when her teeth graze the lobe I can't stifle a moan. _

"_Because-", In one swift motion she skewers herself onto my cock and tightens her entire body. The unexpected stimulation makes me moan all too loudly and grip her body tightly as if I were dangling from a cliff and she was a rope. She rocks her hips back and forth, up and down; I hear the chains in her legs clinking lightly. I've rendered all control to her. She knows it and she loves it and I let it happen again and again and again and again._

"_I'm a God to them-", She whispers in my ear, gushing wetness at her own words._

"_Oh god-...harder...please-"_

"_It's all smoke in mirrors, deception, illusions, I know, but to them it's their entire world, and I'm the center of it-"_

"_Faster...yeah...that's it."_

"_They would burn their houses to the ground if I asked them to. Men would skin their wives if I suggested it would better them. Mothers would slaughter their newborn babes at my feet if I wished it...and Merlin forgive me, but I do love it-"_

"_I love you...slow it down a bit."_

"_And the punchline of this grand practical joke on the human race is...in truth, I have no power at all." _

"_I'm sorry...what were you saying?"_

_She stops thrusting me and her hyena like laughter fills my ears. Gently, she plants a kiss on my nose._

"_You're funny, Sev." _

…_..._

"And that there is St. Jude's Church.", Tobias pointed his cigarette in the direction of a church that looked so old and dilapidated a strong wind was apt to blow it down. "It's been abandoned for a few decades now, but eh, the motto around here is 'if it falls down, we'll pick it up then...maybe.'"

He inhaled deep on his cig and they crossed the street. The roads of Spinner's End never seemed to be busy. "Now on this here block we have _Buns n' Thighs_. It's a fried chicken joint _and_ a strip joint; innovation if I ever saw it, I tell you what. Next door from that you can get your checks cashed and your bail bonds and all that jazz. And here...we have Seniore Jappepi's Gymnastics Studio." On the stoop of a small, dingy looking building, an olive-skinned man with slicked back ebony hair and a pencil-thin mustache stood smoking a cigarette. The long black traveling cloak he wore almost gave him the impression of an overgrown bat.

"Hey there Seniore Jappepi! How's tricks?", Tobias extended a wave in a friendly gesture.

Seniore Jappepi's eyes narrowed to slits and his face contorted into a look of utter contempt for the both of them. He spat on the ground in disgust. "_Iuogo remoto idiota stronzo_-", still muttering filthy sounding Italian slurs under his breath, he turned his back to them and retreated into his studio, slamming the door behind him.

"He uh...he ain't the sunniest fellow.", He told her quietly.

"I've noticed that's a running theme around here...except for maybe you, that is.", She said, flashing him a sheepish smile.

"Heh, well you see, Spinner's End is...there's a French word for it, now, if I can manage to think of it. It's a...a...ooby...oobly-", He screwed up his face in concentration.

"An oubliette?"

"Yeah, That's it. It's a place people go to be forgotten about, essentially. Everyone keeps to themselves and nobody asks too many questions. We got your ex-cons, your bootleggers, your nutters, your druggers, your backgammon players; just a bunch of folk who'd rather be left out of the thick of society."

"And which of these categories do you fit? Not the last one, I hope.", She asked him coyly.

He chuckled low and deep, a sound she was quickly beginning to love. "No, no. Me, I'm just a simple man. I stay here to help out my Mah, mostly. She's been here all her life. Stick around her long enough and she'll be sure to let you know fifty times over how there used to be nothing but Polish folk who lived here before the 'undesirables' rolled in and the river used to be so clean you could wash your babies in it." He cocked an eyebrow and gave her a playfully suspicious once-over. "So what is it you're hiding from, little lady?"

"What do you mean?", She asked, a slight shakiness in her voice giving away her feigned innocence.

"I'm a simple man, not a stupid one. It's a mistake people tend to make around me. German accent or not, you speak the Queen's English. You rarely leave your room, but when you do, you're dressed in clothes that are probably worth a month's pay to most folks around here. Also...you've just got a certain kind of pretty about you that you only see with highborn women.", He looked down at his feet momentarily and blushed as he finished the sentence. "It just makes me wonder. What's a rich, pretty lady like you doing washed up in a God forsaken gutter like this?"

"Formerly rich. Any money I had belonged to my family, not me. I didn't earn a dime of it. As a matter of fact, neither did they really. It belonged to their fathers before them, and from there, their fathers before them, and more than half of it belonged to the Studworths anyway."

"The Studworths?", He couldn't help but add a touch of mocking snootiness when he voiced the name.

"Friends of the family." She replied, smirking. "That's how a great deal of wealth works, anyhow. Being born in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people. I'll let you in on another secret, as well: It doesn't make life any better. More comfortable, perhaps, but not better. When it all comes down to it, fate hands us all the same bullshit. Some of us just get it wrapped in shinier packages."

"A poetic way of putting it.", He nodded.

"To answer your question, however, I came here to start a new life.", She turned her eyes to the late afternoon sun flitting through the trees of the encroaching forest.

"I'm guessing the little feller's dad not waking up no more had something to do with that decision."

Eileen nodded and shifted her eyes to her feet.

"Hey now, I'm sorry if I stepped over the line with that..."

"Oh, no, it's okay, really.", She met his gray-blue eyes and found she could not hold his gaze long. It seemed the more she looked at him the harder he was to look at, like gazing into the sun.

"Welp, this here is where the trail starts for the forest.", He took her by the arm and led her from the sidewalk to a narrow, dirt trail cutting through low-hanging trees that drooped overhead like great green curtains. Some of them still even held their spring blossoms, sending a flurry of petals dancing in the wind with every light breeze. As Tobias guided her through the dense wood, she noticed that there was an unnatural yet nonthreatening silence and stillness to the place that made it as sedating as a quaalude. She simply walked with her handsome companion in silence for a time and watched the sun begin to dip under the canopy, gold setting a hundred shades of green aflame while she enjoyed the rugged feel of his calloused hand in hers.

"I can see why you wanted to wait until sunset.", She told him in little more than a whisper.

"It's pretty, ain't it? Not too many folks come by around these woods. Makes it all the better for me, I suppose. I come around here a lot, just to think, to get away-"

"Look!"

Eileen gasped and pointed in the direction of what appeared to be a sentient shrubbery at first, when a few seconds later a doe with fur so pale it was nearly white raised it's head above its leaves, gazing at them with wide and frightened shimmering eyes. Hand outstretched, she took a few stealthy steps toward the creature, trying her best to move in silence so as not to spook it.

"Careful now," Tobias whispered. "Those things have been known to charge at folks."

Eileen paid him no heed and continued toward the animal, which had now turned away from them and begun slowly trotting down the trail. She stood on the barest tips of her feet as possible and followed it. She looked behind her toward Tobias and giggled softly as she watched him follow suit. Ahead, the doe sauntered gracefully onward, calm and steady as if it was purposefully leading the two of them someplace.

Step by carefully muted step they trailed behind, taking great caution not to get too close and have it scamper off into the trees. Just as the falling sun's rays were beginning to beat directly into their eyes, the beige doe sped up it's pace slightly and galloped over a slight incline and down into a slim ravine of cracked and worn concrete, at the end of which resided a dried-up storm drain so coated in moss and vines it looked to be one with the nature surrounding it. Tobias caught up with her and gently retook her hand, guiding her carefully down the mild slope. The doe had come to rest and stooped its head down to graze in the grassy patches just beyond the concrete. She would have continued her playful attempts at approaching the animal, had it not been for the glint of metal that was glaring in her peripheral vision, caught directly in the rays of the setting sun. It was coming from the storm drain. On second look, in fact, the storm drain didn't appear to be quite so abandoned at all.

"Tobias, do you see-"

"Yeah, I see it.", His eyes were already narrowed in the direction of the mossy opening. "Stay behind me, hun. This town's got more than its share of bums crawling around and not a one of them are too friendly."

Slowly and guardedly they approached, yet luckily there appeared to be no sign of life inside.

"Hey!", Tobias called with cupped hands into the opening of the drain, but was only met by echoes.

Seeing that the coast was clear, Eileen stepped from behind him and ducked inside. Standing a few feet inward from the opening was a rickety old table that was serving whoever must have inhabited the place as a writing desk, atop of which sat a typewriter that had seen so much use the letters on its deeply indented keys were all but faded away. Beside the table, a threadbare sleeping bag was laid out. The arrangement of items before her certainly bespoke a sad life to whatever individual called this musty, crude space a home. Sadder still was what she found just beside the sleeping bag.

Ever since the day she was handed down her late Great-Aunt Mandarys' wand, which held a strand of Veela hair at its core, Eileen had a bit of a fascination with the bewitching Siren-esque creatures. Having read more than one book about them, as well as making them the subject of her second year term paper, she would certainly know if she saw one. The silver haired, sea-blue eyed, porcelain skinned female somehow managed to glow through the shattered glass of the tarnished picture frame that laid just beside the place one would rest their head in the tattered old bedroll.

A man and a little girl shared the photograph with her, and handsome as they both were, each were dulled in a way by her radiance. The little one must have been their daughter, as she seemed to share a blend of features of the two adults flanking her. She had smooth skin that was the color of heavily creamed coffee and long, thick, midnight black hair. Contrasting her dark features were eyes as pale a blue as sea foam. The father, who stood smiling proudly over the both of them, looked very oddly familiar to Eileen, but she could not place from where. He had skin several shades darker than his daughter's, shaggy black hair and eyes such a rich, light shade of brown they appeared gold. Eileen gingerly ran her fingers along the cracks in the glass covering the photo. They had a certain pattern to them, being densest at the center of the picture and then spidering outward loosely to the edges, as if the frame had not been dropped or fallen, but rather had been struck, like someone put their fist through it. When Eileen took a second glance at the man in the picture, she found that she knew him...

"Honest Jon!", She gasped, holding her hand to her mouth in surprise.

"Wha?", Tobias looked up from the typewriter he was curiously fiddling with and turned to Eileen.

"Look, it's him, in this picture. This must be where he lives...", She told him, letting her eyes take in the dark, dank surroundings of the storm drain once again.

"Who now?", He came up beside her and cocked his head to the left confusedly at the photo she was holding.

"Honest Jon. He comes around with a shopping cart and screams on by the hotel all the time."

"Wait a minute! You ain't talking about that nut job who's always hootin' and hollerin' about mind powers and space aliens are ya?"

"Yes, him! This must be a picture of him before he...moved in here, I suppose.", She did not want to be so cruel as to say 'before he lost his mind.'

"Ah man, this I gotta see.", He said disbelievingly, gently taking the picture from her hands and holding it in the light. "Well I'll be a baboon's asshole, that is him! Christ, you can't even recognize the man once ya give him a shower and something decent to wear. Goddamn, he had a looker for a wife too...Really makes ya wonder what could have happened to the guy, doesn't it?"

"It does. It really does...", She said bemusedly. Only when they stepped out of Honest Jon's somber abode to continue their walk, she was certain her head was brimming with different questions than her date's. A man married to a Veela couldn't be ignorant of the wizarding world, that one thing was for certain. Was the homeless 'prophet' who bellowed his lunatic's ravings through the streets also a fellow Wizard of Spinner's End? Was he simply a muggle who was fortunate enough to catch the attention of a very non-picky Veela? What on Earth could have led the poor man to such a life of abject poverty? Though she only knew Honest Jon in passing and considered him a nuisance at best, the implications more than piqued her curiosity.

"That's just how it goes, it seems.", Tobias mused, half to himself.

"Huh?", Eileen looked toward him, startled out of her reverie.

"Life around here, I mean. People wind up here from everywhere, looking to...fade away, I guess. Everyone has their own sob story. A whole town of folks just sittin' on their porches, singin' about how great they used to have it, before bad luck and shit choices led them to the wrong side of the river. You though...", He gently cupped her chin in his hand, bringing her black eyes to his own. "You come here looking to make a new life...it makes me wish I could tell you something...I don't know, encouraging, but...", He trailed off and broke eye contact with her. She could see the end of the trail a few yards away, and beyond that, the street which would bring them back to the hotel.

"But what?", She asked him.

"But...nothing good ever comes from Spinner's End."

She smiled at him. "Now, that can't be true. I mean you have...this lovely forest, for example! And...nuclear energy! That's a great thing, isn't it?", She blushed, knowing she was grasping at straws so hard she was barely making sense. He chuckled low under his breath and ran a hand through his thick, mouse brown hair. As they emerged from the woods and he stepped into the last rays of the retreating summer sun, he looked to her to be a silhouette of perfect masculinity. She had to stifle a sigh.

"Well now, I never said nothing _great_ comes out of Spinner's End...just nothing _good_."

Before she could ponder just exactly what he meant by that, the shrill warnings of the impending arrival of The Puppet Master and the indescribable wonders of infinite consciousness exploded in her ears.

"OUR SOULS ARE MADE OF BUT MERE ELECTRICITY! WE ALL EXIST CONNECTED ON THE SAME CURRENT! WE MUST COME TOGETHER TO OVERTHROW THE MASTER!", Honest Jon screamed as he pushed along his rusted shopping cart full of books. He was walking in their direction. Eileen figured he must be headed toward his home to seek some respite from his daily travels.

"Ah jeez, speak of the devil.", Tobias muttered.

Recognizing Eileen, Honest Jon waved and began jogging over to them, his mismatched rags flopping after him like jester's motley.

"Eileen! My sweet _dauphine_! How it pleases my heart to see you out and about!", Completely ignoring Tobias, he seized her by the wrists and playfully spun her around.

"HEY! You get your filthy Gypsy paws off her ya fuckin' loony!", Tobias shouted threateningly, shaking his raised and coiled fist in front of him.

Eileen waved her hand low in his direction to pacify him. "It's quite alright Toby, I assure you he means no harm." Nonetheless she tore her hands from the grasp of Honest Jon. "That will do Jon, that will do.", She said tersely as she smoothed her skirts.

"I see you have...company.", He remarked, sizing up Tobias up and down in his golden eyes with an air of condescension that should have been difficult for a vagrant to pull off, but came rather naturally to Honest Jon.

"Yes, I do.", Eileen shifted her eyes towards Tobias, who was glaring at Honest Jon whilst grinding his fist in his hand. "Listen, Jon, you um...?", _How exactly am I supposed to approach this without tipping off Tobias?_

"I what, my Lady?"

"You never told me you had a family.", Were the words she finally decided on.

Honest Jon flinched backward from her, as if the statement leaving her mouth had physically shoved him. His soft smirk was practically slapped off his face and his smarmy demeanor drained out of him, making him look more downtrodden than ever. Looking away from her, he wrapped his fingers around the handle of his shopping cart, as if it were the only thing keeping him from falling to his knees. As he did so, she saw his hands were trembling. She knew at once she had hit a raw cord with him and felt true sorrow for the man.

"Jon...", She extended a hand towards the dark, shaking one that grasped the rusted cart, but he pulled away sharply.

"I'm afraid you are in error, my Lady.", His eyes met hers, cold as the metal they were colored after. "I have no family.", He scraped up the smallest shred of a smile he could muster and tipped his hat to her. "Good day to you."

With the exception of the tinny shrieks from the wheels of his cart, he made his way toward the shelter of the trees in silence. Eileen wanted badly to stop him, to press him further about his origins, to ask him what and if he knew of magic, but she did not have the heart to do so. Using her better judgment, she walked on with Tobias and left the Gypsy to his pain.

They returned through the doors of the Railview Hotel just as the stars were beginning to attempt to shine through the blanket of smog that hung over the town. Tobias Snape led his date by the arm down the drab corridor back to room #27 just as the mingled scents of the various guests' evening meals was beginning to clear out. When they reached her door, they stood facing each other as an awkward but not unpleasant silence passed over them.

Tobias absently rubbed the back of his neck. "Would it be uh...forward of me if I were to invite myself inside?", He asked her sheepishly, his face flushing pink.

For a half-crazed moment she actually caught herself subconsciously calculating when her father would be home, before she remembered that he was hundreds of miles away in a different country altogether and must have given up his search for her, had he even held one to begin with. She smiled warmly at Tobias. "Well, I do have a bottle of firewhisky inside that's been sitting untouched since I moved in."

"Firewhisky? I don't think I've heard of the stuff."

She mentally smacked herself as she pulled out the key to her room. "It's...foreign. I think you'll like it."

He smiled at her, warm and confident. "I'm sure I will darlin'.", And with that, she unlocked the door and hand-in-hand they stepped inside.

Eileen went to the sink and scrubbed off two tall glasses for them to use as her male companion absently examined the few items that lay scattered about the room, most of which were toys belonging to Viserus. She had not thought to clean up before she left the house and didn't think much of it...until a golden snitch, the one Aunt Jenny had passed on to Viserus from her days as beater for Slytherin and she had been too goddamn absent minded to put away, flew past her head so fast she swore it took some of her hair with it.

_Shit._

She snapped her head towards Tobias, who was staring at her with eyes just slightly wider than dinner plates. "What in tarnation was that thing?"

"A toy!", She said, too loudly and too uneasily, "Of my son's.", She tittered nervously as she poured the firewhisky, slopping some over the side of the glass in haste.

"Damn. I sure as hell never had any neat gizmos like that when I was a kid."

She handed him a glass of the sugary, cinnamon smelling red liquid. "Just another...foreign thing. They have all kinds of crazy toys for kids in Germany; Dolls that really shit themselves, shoes that turn into rollerblades, it's really quite something.", She realized how skittishly fast and high pitched her voice had become and took a deep swig of her firewhisky, hoping it would take the edge off sooner rather than later.

"Does the little guy miss it? Germany, I mean?", He asked her as they adjourned to the sofa.

"He only reminds me every day.", She replied sardonically.

"You weren't in the thick of the war, now were you?"

Eileen coughed as she felt firewhisky hit the raw back of her throat from an overly greedy sip. "The war?"

"Yeah, you know, World War II.", He said plainly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, which it was. "Now me, I don't know what went on in Germany or nuthin' so I don't know if you had Nazis marchin' down your streets and sayin' howdy to you at the corner store, but I tell you what, if I hadn't busted my knee at the plant a few years back I would of enlisted. I heard what went on in those camps was just something awful. You ain't thirsty, are ya?", He quipped, smirking and eyeing her already drained glass.

Her face flushed with embarassment, but between being assaulted by her son's snitch and the mention of the war, she was very thirsty indeed. "I suppose I am.", She smiled as she poured herself another glass. "To answer your question though, no, my family had no part in the war, thank God.", She lied through her teeth as she guzzled more liquor. Between the mugginess of the summer air, the booze running through her blood, her general anxiety, and the heat of something else altogether that flowed through her via the presence of male company, she decided that the room had become unbearably stuffy. "If you don't mind I'm just going to crack the back door and get some fresh air in here."

"Not at all, darlin'."

She set her glass on the coffee table and strode over to the sliding glass doors at the back wall, and when she pulled back the curtains to crack them she let out a blood curdling scream and recoiled backward so quickly she tripped over her own feet and landed on her backside. There he was, right at her back door. A cigarette was held between his long, slender fingers and his feathery cut golden blonde hair was rustling in the breeze along with his long, white labcoat. From the sideways position he was standing, the glare of the moon on his glasses hid his eyes, but she would know him anywhere.

"Father!", She cried as tears of unbridled terror welled in her eyes.

The man on the other side of the glass turned to her, and when the glare over his glasses passed, he looked her dead in the eye...his brown eyes full of confusion. Though her vision was skewed by tears and whiskey, she could see now that his face was too round and he was about 20 years too young. While she clutched her hand to her chest in an attempt to keep her heart from bursting through her ribcage, Tobias bound angrily toward the door and ripped it open.

"HEY ASSHOLE! You see that sign over there?!", Tobias bellowed.

"Whut sign?", The blonde stranger replied.

"That one! It says NO LOITERING! And here I see you, clearly lookin' for an ass beatin', on my property loitering! You nearly gave my lady friend a coronary, that you did!"

"Quit torquin' me man! I'm just tryin' to have a bogey here, alright?"

"You can have it somewhere else unless you wanna be havin' your fuckin' teeth down your throat, ya hear! Now go on, git!"

The blonde stranger spat and stalked off, clearly not wanting to engage in a physical confrontation with the taller and far angrier man. Tobias slid the door closed just enough to leave a crack for air. "Christ almighty, the folks around here...I'm so sorry about that, darlin', are you alright?", But when he turned to find her still crumpled on the floor, face white as a corpse and cheeks stained with tears he knew she wasn't. Slowly and softly he approached her, dropping to his knees himself and taking her in his arms.

"Hey now...it's alright.", He murmured to her, stroking her dark hair. "Ssshhh...it was only some dumbshit gutter trash. He's gone now. It's okay."

"He's never gone.", She spoke to him in a trembling whisper.

"What do you mean, darlin'?", He asked as he carefully helped her up and guided her back to the sofa.

What did she mean? What was she doing? She was in the middle of England living in a shoddy hotel sharing firewhisky with a muggle man. Should that have been her real father standing outside, Tobias' brains would have been painting the walls right now and God only knew what the vile man would have in store for her. And even if the day never came when her father found her, what then? What kind of relationship could she possibly lead with the man sitting next to her with the frightened and befuddled look in his eyes. Years ago, she could have just given up her life of magic, but as it stood she had a three-year-old wizard son and that was all out the window now. She was in the wizarding world for life whether she wanted to be or not. Without even being aware of what she was doing she drained her second glass of firewhisky, and the more she felt the booze hit her the more doubts and fears pelted her brain. The floodgates that held her emotions in check were opening and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Her vision doubled, the room spun, and her sense of judgment and reason were lost in the raging tide. She knew she should tell him to go, tell him she was out of sorts and that she needed to be left to herself, but out of her numbed lips came the words:

"Tobias, I have to tell you something."

"What is it, hun?"

"My life is...complicated.", She poured herself another glass of firewhiskey.

"I get ya, darlin'. Widow, single mom, new town...I know it can't be easy.", He soothed, stroking her back.

"It's more than that...a lot more."

"Well lay it on me, hun-"

"I'm a witch, Toby."

He chuckled softly and rubbed the back of his neck. "My mom's a witch. Hell, most of the women I've dated were witches. You though, you ain't no witch, you're a real sweetheart.", He rubbed her shoulder.

She laughed in spite of herself. "I'm serious. I come from a community of people who are able to wield magic, and well...a lot of them are not all too friendly to people who cannot."

He looked at her, bewildered. "I don't get it."

Without another word she got up from the sofa, nearly fell straight back down from the head rush and staggered to her bedside table to fetch her wand. When she returned to the sitting area she sat beside him and looked at him almost pleadingly. "Promise me you won't scream."

"I ain't no wimp.", He replied confusedly.

She knew that there would be no going back after this, but the can of worms was already half open anyway. Pointing her wand toward a pair of Viserus' shoes that lay discarded in the corner, she caused them to levitate at least 6 feet off the floor and drift over to the open closet and landed them inside.

It was Tobias' turn to drain his glass.

"Christ on a cracker...the radiation leaks really are fuckin' up this town.", He said in a voice filled half with awe and half with fear.

"It's real, Toby. There's practically a whole world of people like us. I can show you more, if you like.", She told him, raising her wand again. He filled another glass.

"That's...that's quite alright, darlin'. I believe you, I do. I just...wow. I wasn't expecting that.", He drank deep.

"No muggle ever is."

"No what?"

"Muggle. It's what we call non-magic folk. We kind of have a bit of our own language too, I'm sorry."

"It's alright.", He sighed heavily and ran his hand through his hair. "I tell you what...I've seen my share of folks come and go through this town. Jokers, smokers, midnight tokers, thieves, killers, loonies, bums, and shit I still don't know what the deal is with that wop at the gymnastics place, but this...this I do say is a first. You are most certainly the first witch I've seen in Spinner's End...or anywhere for that matter.", There was a pregnant pause. "The little fella, is he-"

"Yes. My son is a wizard. My late husband was as well. As is the rest of my family. And the reason I came here was to get so far away from them that they would never find me."

"Why would you want to do that? Aren't they your...kind an all? Ah shoot, that sounded racist, didn't it? I'm sorry..."

"It's alright. I know this all must be so very unusual to you. I'm so sorry, I never should have got you roped into all this. If you want to leave, I understand completely-"

"Hey now, witch or not, I still stand by what I said before. You're a real sweetheart, Eileen.", He pulled her in closer to him and planted a kiss on her forehead. "I really can't imagine a girl as nice as you coming from a family so nasty that you'd have to hide from them.", He wiped a tear from her cheek and offered her a soft, loving smile.

Had she been sober, she might have laughed at the irony. As she was though, the comment only caused the floodgates of her sorrow to open wider, and she found herself lost in a sea of her own horrid memories and misgivings. She began sobbing in earnest, holding her spinning head in her hands and letting tears fall to her lap.

"Ssshhh.", He soothed, guiding her head to his shoulder. "It can't be all that bad, darlin', can it?"

"It can.", And with those words her last wall had crumbled, and into Tobias' tear soaked shoulder she told him everything. In her heaving sobs and anguished cries he learned the tale of Severus The Conqueror, of her dreadful marriage to her cousin and the child they shared, of her repugnant Aunt Jenny who lived for her brother's cock and the Studworth's money, of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade and thralls and blood wars, of Princes and kings and a man who wore a crown of thorns and claimed to be a Lord. When she finally fell silent, Tobias was still there, still holding her, and still whispering words of love and comfort into her hair. After a long pause to take in all she had to say, what he said in return was short and sweet.

"Like I told you before darlin', everyone around here has a story, and by God that is the one that takes home the Oscar, I tell you what. But all in all, you still have one thing in common with everyone else around here."

"And what is that, Toby?"

He lowered his face to hers, so as to meet her eyes. "It's all in the past for you now. You don't have to cry about it anymore. You can put it all behind you now."

She wanted so badly to eat up those honeyed words, but she knew it was not that simple. "You don't understand, my father-"

"Is half a world away and if he shows up here I'll deck him so hard he'll be eatin' out your aunt with a set of wooden teeth."

"If anyone were to ever catch my father and hold him you'd have to wait in line behind a few million Jews to get your chance.", She sipped her drink bitterly.

"What...do you mean? Just who was your father?"

"My father is Dr. Severus Prince, the 66th of his name, former Head Physician of the Schutzstaffel and Chief Advisor to the late Fuhrer of Germany, Adolph Hitler.", She drained her glass in one gulp as she felt Tobias stop breathing for a moment.

"And you...had to live with that man?"

"Aye. That I did. And do you know what he did to me the first time he found me with a muggle man?"

"What did he do? It's alright darlin', you can tell me."

_She could see her tear-stained face reflecting in the polished black exterior of her father's Mercedes. Her trembling hand fumbled with the door handle until Dr. Prince opened it for her from the driver's seat. She stepped in and buckled her seat belt as he turned the key in the ignition, making the well oiled engine of the expensive vehicle purr like a kitten, and for the rest of the drive that was the only sound that was heard._

_Eileen wanted badly to ask him where he was taking them, to once again shower him in apologies, beg him to turn the car around and promise that she would never touch another boy until the end of her days if that's what it took. She looked out the passenger's side window to a gray sky and watched as the buildings and structures of the city slowly became more and more sparse, shifting to grassy country. The first few droplets of a summer rainfall came softly down and ran tiny rivulets of water down the glass. She absently followed the paths of the raindrops with her finger in silent foreboding, having not an inkling as to what her father had in store for her...until in the distance ahead she saw a familiar looking building: Two simple one-story wings to either side and an imposing tower in the center which held two windows. At the foot of the tower stood a large, spiked black gate, making the place vaguely resemble the gaping maw of a hungry monster. As the car approached the gate, a man in a black uniform stopped them. _

"_Identification, please.", The man said to her father's side of the car, urgent and businesslike. _

_Her father simply rolled down the driver's side window and smiled at the man._

"_Dr. Prince! My apologies.", He threw his right hand across his stomach and bowed low. "I'll get the gate for you.", The man ran off and the black steel rattled and then opened slowly with a metallic shriek, revealing a private road flanked by barbed-wire fences. At the side of the road stood a sign that simply read: Auschwitz-Birkenau. _

_Eileen felt her throat constrict as fresh tears welled in her eyes. "Father, what are we doing..._here?"

_On the fences clung inmates, men, women, and children alike that had the look of a bare layer of skin stretched too thin over naught but bone. At the sight of the black Mercedes their faces dropped and they warily retreated back to their camps like startled animals. The car proceeded down the road like a wolf making its way through a crowd of frightened sheep, each one fleeing as it came into view. She wondered briefly if the inmates reacted so fiercely to even the sight of the Fuhrer himself. _Probably not, _she thought to herself. The sight of him would mean death, for sure, but the sight of Dr. Prince meant _pain..._unspeakable pain and horrors beyond imagination as he played God in those cold, sterile rooms, taking human lives and leaving behind twisted, misshapen parodies. Eileen had to make a conscious effort to hold down the contents of her stomach._

"_Father, please...let's just go home."_

"_Oh come now, princess, you're practically a woman now.", He patted her on the shoulder and smiled at her playfully. "Surely you're mature enough to see a bit of your father's work."_

_They came to a parking lot and he rolled the Mercedes into a spot marked _'Reserved for Dr. Severus Prince.'_ He stepped out of the car and she hesitantly did the same. With a disposition as cheerful as if he were walking her to the county fair, he offered her his long, slender-fingered hand and a smile. Obediently, she took it and walked with him. His hand was frigid cold in hers. It was always cold. When they reached a heavy, steel door marked _'Laboratory 19'_ her father opened it and led her inside._

_The pungent odor of unwashed bodies, urine and feces, a myriad of strange chemicals, and something even danker which she could only assume was death came together and assaulted her lungs with such fury she doubled over and nearly emptied her guts right there. Her father laid his arm around her shoulders, his liberal use of cologne adding to her borderline suffocation. _

"_You'll get used to it, princess.", He said almost soothingly, as he led her down the dark, dingy corridor._

_Thankfully, all the doors to the experimentation rooms were closed. However, though she could not see what was going on in this thrice-be-damned sepulcher of science gone mad, just hearing it was enough. The building was a symphony of human suffering. Echoing off of every stark white wall were cries of help and pleads for mercy to an uncaring and absent God. Children screamed for their mothers, men and women alike begged for respite from agony, and some only beseeched their tormentors for death. Amidst the cacophony of tortured howling, every manner of cruel instrument wielded by modern man could be heard. High-pitched drills set her teeth on edge, chains could be heard rattling and buzz saws roared. To the grinning man who had his arm around her, however, this hellscape was just another day at the office. _

_Up ahead, a man in a white lab coat identical to the one her father donned stepped out of an experimentation chamber and bid them hello. _

"_Ah, Josef, my good man!", Her father gave his partner a friendly pat on the shoulder._

"_Severus, and...oh my! This pretty young lady can't possibly be little Eileen, could it?", He smiled at her amiably, revealing a rather large gap between his front teeth. His voice was as soft and gentle as a songbird's, yet there was something about the man that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. "Why, the last time I saw you, your father had to carry you on his shoulders. It's hard to believe I'm looking at the same girl."_

"_I swear, Josef, you blink and find they've grown up on you.", He tangled his long fingers in her hair._

"_You ought to watch this one, Sev, she's too pretty for her own good.", Though he meant it as a complement, under the circumstances, his words held a dark ominousness about them. _

"_Oh, you can say that again. Tell me, do we have any garbage to take out today?"_

"_Actually, I was just about to take care of chamber 13."_

_Her father placed a hand on Josef's shoulder. "Don't worry about it, I'll handle it while I'm here."_

"_You're a prince, Dr. Prince. Thank you. Now if I hurry and get home, I may just yet spare myself a night of my wife's hollering. A good evening to you both.", With a friendly nod of his head, he bid them adieu and was off._

He brought me here to watch him take out the trash? _She pondered, confused. Only when her father flipped the light switch beside a hermetically sealed room of steel and plexiglass labeled _"Chamber 13", _she was not greeted by a can of rubbish. She was standing in front of a gas chamber. A row of dead-eyed breathing skeletons looked her over with empty gazes as fluorescent light flooded the small chamber. Children and adults of all ages stood side by side, naked as they were on their name days, rubbing their hands against their twig-like arms in a vain attempt to stave off the frigid air against their bare skin. _

_The smuggest look of satisfaction spread over her father's features as he watched the color drain from his daughter's flesh._

"_Welcome to the machine, princess." _

_As Dr. Prince stepped into view of the ill-fated inmates, they screamed in unison, knowing that they were standing in their grave. The thickness of the chamber's walls muffled the sound, but it was no less heart-wrenching. The women shielded the eyes of their children and the men tried to keep what little composure they had for the sake of the women._

"_Daddy...please..."_

"_I asked you a question earlier. I asked you what you thought was more important in life, love or strength. You answered love."_

_She nodded, tears falling freely down her cheeks. _

_Her father cupped her face in his icy hand, wiping away a tear with his thumb. "I'm about to show you why you are wrong." He kissed her gently on the forehead...and then stepped back, wrapping his fingers around the handle of a large, red switch on the wall._

"_NOOO!", Eileen screamed, but her plea fell on deaf ears. Dr. Prince flipped the switch without a second thought. The machine roared. Behind the glass, the shrieks of the forsaken mingled with a sharp, piercing _hiss _that birthed a sickening sound all its own which resonated through the entire facility. Her father slithered up behind her and cupped her shoulders in his hands, she could feel his feathery hair tickle her cheek._

"_Do you see that woman there?", He pointed to a middle-aged woman trying desperately to cover three small children with her own body. She whimpered and nodded. "Two of those children are hers, and one is her nephew, and the man standing beside her his her husband. Oh, and that man over there covering that old woman's mouth, they're mother and son. Let's see...if I'm not mistaken, all four of those men are brothers and one of them is fucking that woman over there, I forget which, oh well." He shrugged and looked at his daughter. "There certainly is a lot of love in that room, wouldn't you say?"_

_She was sobbing so heavily that speech escaped her._

_Her father brought his lips to her ear. "How long do you think it will be before love, chivalry, and family bonds crumble to ashes in there and all of those people become biting, clawing animals?", He whispered with a passionate, almost romantic sounding caress. _

"_Daddy, PLEASE! Turn it OFF! MAKE IT STOP!", She wailed._

"_I've watched this over a thousand times, princess. It's always the same. Give it about another 15 seconds; that's when the gas will have filled the room about halfway. It's coming from those vents near the floor, you see. Towards the ceiling there will still be a bit of fresh air."_

_She tried to turn face away and hide her eyes from the carnage in front of her, but it was no use. Her father seized a handful of her hair and tightly held her head in place. "Daddy...please...stop...please don't make me watch...", She continued to sob, and he continued to ignore her. _

_The woman who was holding the three children abruptly let go of them and began clawing at her own throat in frenzied agony. A purple flush crept up her skin and the veins in her throat became distended and pulsed visibly as she tore into her neck with her own fingernails. She staggered on half-dead legs over to one of the four brothers her father had pointed out and seized his shoulders, trying to scale his body to the untainted air that was slowly waning at the top of the chamber. Her weight on his weakened body brought the both of them crashing down and her head hit the floor with a sickening _crack._ The man found his footing and made his way over to the children, which had already choked to death, judging from their limp, purple bodies, and began unceremoniously piling their corpses against the wall and attempting to climb them to higher ground. _

_Eileen could no longer keep her food down and Dr. Prince had to shift backwards in order to keep her vomit from spraying onto his shoes. "Dad...", She dry heaved, her face and eyes blood red from weeping and puking. "Please..."_

_Dr. Prince looked at his watch. "One minute and thirty-three seconds.", He stated._

"_What?"_

"_One minute and thirty-three seconds. That's how long love was able to put up a fight in the face of chaos."_

_In the chamber, the man standing atop the pile of children desperately sucked at the slightly less toxic air towards the ceiling. Lumbering behind him came one of his brothers, who grasped him by the hair and smashed his skull against the wall, sending him to his death. He laid his dead brother's bleeding, lifeless body atop the children and climbed..._

"_Tell me, princess, who do you think will be the last man standing?"_

_She looked upon the dying as they clawed and grasped desperately at their throats, as their legs gave out beneath them, as their noses and protruding eyes leaked blood..._

"_The strongest.", She whispered through heaving breaths._

"_What was that, princess? I could not hear you."_

_She knew he could, but she humored him. "The strongest.", She said, slightly louder._

"_Ah, now you are learning.", He kissed her cheek. _

_She watched as one by one the survivors piled the fallen atop each other, building a tower of flesh and bone. The remaining men battled one another for the position at the top, where the last shred of clean air faded away. They pushed and bit and bashed and shoved and clawed until the man who won the top fell limp and purple against the wall._

_At the very least, she was relieved it was finally over. _

"_You may think me cruel, Eileen, but I assure you the world is far, far crueler, and out there, love is worth nothing. Strength and wit, however, that is what preserves a man. It is why I'm the one pulling the switch and they...", He pointed to the bodies. "Are the ones climbing their dead for a chance at a last breath. And in our world, as you know, all it took was one fiercely strong man to make us the royal family. You are a Prince, Eileen. An heiress to the finest and most powerful dynasty of wizards and witches who ever walked the Earth, and you are one of the last of us. I will not see you wasted whoring yourself amongst muggle commoners and bringing half-bloods into this world. You will grow up to be a strong witch, you will marry one of our own, and your offspring will be strong as well, and together..."_

"We will take back what the weak ones in our family have allowed to slip through their fingers.", She finished telling Tobias as she drained her sixth glass. His face was ashen as a ghost's and an unlit cigarette trembled in his fingers.

"Mother of God..."

"God couldn't save anyone who was on the wrong side of Dr. Prince, and he won't save us if he ever finds us.", Once again, she let her tears fall free, having relived the horrors of the day her father welcomed her to the machine.

"Do you know what I think, darlin'?", He brought his face so close that his hooked nose brushed against her petite one.

"What?"

"I think if your father wants a pure-blood wizard to get fucked, I know who he can start with.", And with that he closed his eyes and took her mouth in his, and her tongue answered him hungrily. He embraced her thin frame tightly as he explored her mouth, growling softly as he admired just how lovely her subtle, skinny curves felt in his hands. When his calloused hand moved down to cup her small breast, she did not stop him.

"I ain't gonna leave you, darlin'. You're safe with me, ya hear?", He stroked the side of her breast with his thumb almost ritualistically as he repeated the words: "You're safe with me, you're safe with me."

She deepened the kiss, knowing full well what it would lead to. He slid an arm under her knees and seized her up, carrying her princess-style to the bedroom. When he laid her gently on her bed, his hand found the zipper to her dress and slowly pulled down. She felt goosebumps break out over her arms and legs as he lightly caressed her bare back with his nails. Every sensation he caused was new and exhilarating to her. Despite the fact she had been married and even shared a child with a man, she was a virgin. A virgin to the pleasures of lovemaking in which there was actual love involved, and now that she had been given a taste she only wanted more. She unclasped her bra while he pulled his t-shirt over his head and unfastened his jeans. When he pulled her dress down over her legs, tossed it against the wall and mounted her she couldn't have given half a shit if her father himself was standing over the bed watching. The way he was touching her she wouldn't make him stop if the hotel was on fire. His manhood found her so sopping, he entered her without any effort at all. He had one hand tangled in her hair and the other intertwined her own. Diamonds of sweat formed on her brow as she breathed his name, over and over and over again. Her whispers turned to screams as she neared ecstasy and he was so lost in her flesh he didn't even feel it when she raked her nails across his back so hard he bled.

"I meant what I said, darlin', I ain't gonna leave you.", He whispered softly as his he spilled his seed into her flooding opening. When her shrieks of 'Toby' subsided, he pulled out of her and spooned her into his arms. She relaxed against him, letting her head fall on his chest, savoring every second of his warmth as he held her in the darkness.

Every man Eileen had ever known had a been a liar. Though whether it be wishful thinking, severe excess of alcohol, or the glow of post-coital bliss, she drank his every word. He wouldn't leave her. And she didn't want him to, ever. As silly and juvenile as it was, she could almost picture them married, sharing a quiet life together. She knew she was thinking like a half-wit teenager but God be damned if she ever got to be young. As her eyes became heavy with sleep, her mind danced with visions of a perfect wedding, a perfect home, and a perfect life. In the deepest recesses of her imagination, she could even see them having children, and she envisioned them the most perfect of all.

**-End of Part I-**

**A/N: Dr. Prince does not fuck around when giving life lessons. Whenever I write lines for him, I always picture the voice of Col. Hans Landa from Inglorious Bastards in my head. I picture them pretty similar in mannerism as well, just happy-go-lucky Nazis. Also, if anyone's wondering what Seniore Jappepi called Tobias, he called him a 'backwoods idiot douchebag.' Anyway, Severus himself will FINALLY be making an appearance next chapter. 30,000 words later I do say Eileen's portion of the story went on longer than I wanted it to, but I'm still pleased with how it turned out. As always, I hope everyone's enjoying themselves so far. Fun fact: Honest Jon is my self-insert character and I'm actually writing this story from a very cozy storm drain in the woods. Stay classy, ! **


	7. Speak Softly, Carry A Big Jug of Bleach

**-Part II-**

"**Speak softly and carry a big stick." -Theodore Roosevelt**

_The fine golden metal scrollwork of the tiny vial glittered in the dim candlelight of the Slytherin common room. _

"So where were the spiders, when the fly tried to break our balls?

Just the beer light to guide us.

So we bitched about his fans and should we crush his sweet hands?"

_I carefully removed the stopper from the sparkling crystal container of 'Felix Felicis' and sniffed its contents. An image flashed through my head of a laughing brown-haired girl sipping a drink. Crystal Pepsi. Sugar and water with a few other things added. Worthless. Goddamn. Garbage._

"Ziggy played for time, jiving us that we were Voodoo.

The kids was just crass, he was the naz,

With God given ass.

He took it all too far, but boy could he play guitaa-aaar!"

_I gripped the vial tightly...and then threw it against the wall. It shattered a tiny rain of crystal shards over the rubbish basket and I watched the feckless, piss-yellow sugary waste drip down the wall of the dark dungeon. _

"Making love with his ego,

Ziggy sucked up into his miii-iiind."

_The door to the common room opened and a sentient pile of dripping wet animal pelts walked through with a dead stag hung over its shoulder. Wordlessly, Dolohov The Bloodhound flung the stag onto the table I was brooding at, rested his spear against the wall, and laid the soaking wet wolf pelt that was draped over his head and shoulders over the back of a chair. He grunted and nodded his head to me in greeting, I returned the gesture. _

"_Staying in for the night?", I asked him. Dolohov usually preferred to slumber under the stars. When it rained, however, he sought shelter indoors._

_He simply grunted and nodded, removing a dagger from his belt. He was ever a man of few words._

"Like a leper messiah,

When the kids had killed the man"

_I couldn't stifle a grin watching Dolohov The Bloodhound skin his felled quarry. The sight of the stag brought my thoughts to James Potter, and what it would be like to flay his flesh off of his bones, slow enough to make him scream until his throat burst...unlike the stag on the table, he would be alive for the whole thing..._

"I had to BREAK UP THE BAAAANNND-_AH FUCK!_"

_Ziggy Stardust had ended abruptly with a sloppy, discordant, slam on the guitar strings. Rosier sat on the sofa, wiping the juice of a tomato that had been hurled at him off of his face._

"_Hey Ziggy!", Mulciber called out, tossing another tomato up in the air and lazily catching it in his hand. "In case it escaped your notice, you are not David Bowie. Now how about you stifle your bloody caterwauling before the next tomato gets shoved up your pretty little wannabe rock star ass!"_

_Rosier laid his guitar on the sofa and rose to his feet menacingly...as did I. True, Rosier was indeed not David Bowie, and his nightly concerts left much to be desired, but he was my friend...and Mulciber had dared to run his mouth with me in earshot. That was enough. Both Mulciber and Rosier looked at me warily and with a wave of my hand I diffused the impending dogfight. _

"_So!", I addressed the room. "It would seem that we have some harsh critics of our singer here in the crowd tonight. I suppose I can only hope to lift the mood in here by offering up my own talents. Do you dunderheads want some fucking entertainment?"_

_Dolohov stopped skinning his stag for a moment and turned his eyes to me. Narcissa and Bellatrix Lestrange stopped cackling like hens and turned from each other, looking to me in nervous anticipation. Avery, who had been silently painting the face on a Victorian style doll he was crafting, laid his paintbrush in a cup of water and removed his glasses. Lucius, Rodolphous, and Rabastan peaked their heads over their respective hands of cards from the poker game they were playing at the far end of the room. Everywhere, heads turned and low murmurs were exchanged, until all eyes were on me. _

_Without another word, I strode out to the sofa near the fireplace, front and center to everyone and directly adjacent to Mulciber. Suspicion and defensiveness shadow his features when I reach for my wand, but to his and the rest of the room's confusion, I gently lay it on the floor and remove my shoes. Mulciber just sits in his chair, looking perplexed and vaguely uneasy. I relieve myself of my cumbersome school robes and toss them on the couch, until I am left standing in a simple black wife-beater and black slacks. I raise my arms high into the air and stretch my entire body, breathing as deeply as I can into my lungs, feeling my muscles loosen as if they were rubber held over a flame. My spine sounds a satisfying _crack_. I can hear low whispers being exchanged throughout the common room. _'What is he doing?', 'Are they going to fight?', 'We're about to witness a murder, aren't we?'

_I bend my torso straight downward, until my hands are splayed on the floor, my neck still craned as I continue to eye down Mulciber. Effortlessly, I raise my legs to the ceiling, until my body reflects a perfect handstand. After a half-second pause for breath, I continue moving my lower half forward...contorting my spine until my legs are at a 90 degree angle from my head. Mulciber's eyes widen and the women gasp, holding their hands over their mouths while the men curse and murmur words of disbelief at what's happening before their eyes. I lower my legs further still. I can feel my spine beginning to ache sharply in protest, but I push myself all the same, until my feet are hanging directly in front of my face. _

"_That's disgusting...", Narcissa whispers to her sister._

"_I'd give my left tit for a man that could move like that...", Bellatrix replied, half in a trance._

"_Bella!", Narcissa lightly smacked her on the arm._

_I can feel the fibers of the plush, green rug below me brushing the tips of my toes. Pushing my back to fold just slightly lower, I manage to slide my wand in between the first two toes on my left foot and grip it. I raise my feet up slightly, mildly relieving my spine and pointing my wand directly at Mulciber's bulbous, bald head. _

"_Christ in heaven, Severus, did your mom fuck a cat or something?", Rosier quipped, straightening his cowboy hat. _

"_Worse.", I replied, closing one eye to aim. "She fucked a muggle."_

_Sparks flew from my wand and pelted Mulciber square in the face. When they dissipated, the room erupted in laughter at the rotating circle of disembodied cocks now orbiting around his shining, bald head. Laughter met with applause as I tossed my wand in the air with my foot, flung my legs back over my head and used the momentum to back flip to a standing position again, catching my wand in my hand all in one swift motion. _

"_I think Severus had better end the show here, lest Miss Piggy flood us out with her wetness!", A raspy voice called out._

"_Shut it, Macnair!", Bellatrix hollered angrily, her round, fleshy face flushing scarlet._

_I was sliding my feet back into my black boots as Mulciber rose from his seat, letting his chair clunk loudly and ungracefully upon the wood floor, showing his anger as a three-year-old who got sent to time-out would._

"_Take them off, NOW!", He screamed, his lower jaw protruding in front of him like a bulldog. _

"_Is that how we _ask_ for something, fuckboy?", I respond. A wave of discomfort and anxiousness was slowly smothering the mirth and laughter in the common room._

_Fire formed in Mulciber's eyes and the tendons in his beefy neck became visible. "Listen you fucking Cirque Du Soleil reject, I have a date in five minutes. Just take this shit off of me."_

_A long pause ensued. Mulciber was becoming more incensed by the second and I couldn't help but revel in it. "Okay.", I finally answered. _

_Mulciber rolled his eyes and huffed, attempting to mask his relief that there would be no further conflict between he and I...or would there?_

"_However! Not before...you've paid your respects...", I extend my foot outward. "Lick my boots, cock waxer." Several of the women gasped and more nervous whispers were exchanged. The entire room waited on baited breath for what would come next._

"_You're insane, half-blood...", Mulciber said, incredulous. _

"_That's half-blood _Prince_ to the likes of you. And you can either kneel and start licking or you can fuck your skag tonight with four cocks instead of one."_

"_Severus, please, just take it off him...", Narcissa beseeched softly. _

"_Narcissa, the men are talking.", I warned her, holding a hand to her face and turning my eyes back to Mulciber, who's bulky shoulders were dramatically rising and falling with each exaggerated, infuriated breath. I spread my arms out to either side, my palms open and facing him. "Here I stand, Mulciber. You can pick a fight, if you'd like, but I can tell you that no one else knows the counter-curse to that spell. It's of my own invention, you see.", I briefly diverted my eyes to the sight of an exasperated Narcissa marching over to Lucius._

"_Lucius, you're Head Boy, do something...", She half-whispered, half-hissed._

_Lucius raised a hand to silence her. "Go to bed, Cissy."_

_With a very teenage-girlish grunt and a wave of her silvery blonde hair she stormed off into the girls' dormitories, and with that, the only person in the room who had the gall to stand up for Mulciber had gone. _

_Mulciber scanned the room, as if to look for anyone else who would speak up on his behalf. Every gaze he met fell to the floor and not a single word was spoken. He turned to meet my unflinching visage once more and I could tell he was still entertaining notions of simply zerg rushing me with his fists...until Rosier stood beside me._

_Rosier took the guitar pic from the leather band in his cowboy hat and gracefully ran it across the strings of his guitar, making them sing. His fingers artfully flew across the instrument, breaking into a Renaissance-esque sounding riff. When his lyrics joined the song, I couldn't help but grin from ear-to-ear._

"And what might have you?

The dread King said,

That I'd lay down my sword,

Bend your knee,

And bow to me,

Lest your kingdom face my horde."

_I smiled at Mulciber and wiggled my foot in his direction. Just as he took a step toward me, Bellatrix joined in, clapping to the beat. From the far end of the room someone else could be heard adding to the rhythm. It was Dolohov, tapping his spear against the floor. At the poker table, Rodolphous began clapping as well, and his brother followed suit. Lucius glanced from one crimson-haired Lestrange to the other and joined in. Even 'I don't care' Macnair began putting his hands together and getting into the groove._

"May it take a month, a year, or three,

Be it magic or steel-on-steel.

Thy streets shall run red,

Thy blood shall be shed,

And what's left of you will kneel."

_Be it coincidence or divine humor, just as Rosier sang the word 'kneel' Mulciber dropped to his knees in front of me. Slytherins all through the common room howled at his submission as the room rang out in song and merry pandemonium. Mulciber looked up at me with a look of murder in his eyes so fierce I could feel the heat radiating from his body as he cupped my heel in his palm._

_He spoke in a low, throaty growl. "You listen to me you half-blood wannabe royalty cocksucker...One of these days, I'm gonna take care of you. One day you're gonna disappear, you little shit, and nobody, I mean NOBODY, not even your filthy mugglefucker mommy will find your corpse. I'm gonna fuck you over, Severus Snape...I'm gonna fuck you over..."_

_And maybe one day he would, but that night his words were washed away in a sea of song and his threat was heard by no one._

…_..._

**-Spinner's End, 1968-**

In the cool gray light of a Spinner's End morning, two children occupied a dreary kitchen. One pictured the other in tears, while the other pictured the boy across from him without skin.

"Read it and weep, asshole!"

The older, silvery-blonde haired boy whipped a scroll of paper down in front of the raven haired boy so hard it gave a loud _crack_, causing him to look up casually from his glass of milk. The elegant, curling cursive on the parchment read:

_Dear Mr. Viserus Prince,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find an enclosed list of all necessary books and equipment. _

_Term begins on September the 1st, we await your owl by no later than July the 31st._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Albus Dumbledore._

"Looks like I'm blowing this pop stand, come fall. I would say how dearly I'll miss you and the laughing lard ball downstairs...only I won't.", Viserus tossed his shoulder length hair back with a graceful wave of his hand and haughtily surveyed his surroundings, as if it still hadn't sunk in that he'd been living there for the past eight years. "This place can burn down for all I care while I'm gone and nothing of value would be lost...", He chuckled softly.

The dark haired boy said nothing, only slurped his milk.

"Don't you fret, sweet Sevvy, you'll get one too. They say the current headmaster is some soft-in-the-head bleeding heart liberal who will just let anyone in..." He closed the distance between them and condescendingly placed his hand on the boy's shoulder. "...Even _shitbloods." _His tone saturated the word in so much venom that it dripped contempt. Viserus gave another cavalier hair-flip and walked away tittering to himself as if his juvenile name-slinging was pure comedic genius.

Sevvy Shitblood, as he was so often called, listened as his older brother's footsteps rhythmically faded up the stairs to his large, private, second floor bedroom. He took a sip of his milk. He could still feel the phantom sensation of Viserus' hand on his shoulder, where the prat had dared touch him. Severus inhaled deeply through his nose, which even at the age of eight, reflected a hooked, beak-like protuberance. He slurped his milk and simply took in the sounds around him. A neighbor's rottweiler barked and howled incessantly. In the distance, he could make out the sound of the town lunatic screaming about something that had to do with someone called 'the puppet master', a sound as familiar and clockwork as birds screeching at the rising sun. Faintly, he could hear the chainsaw-esque sound of his younger sister snoring in the basement they shared as a bedroom. At the far corner of the room, a fly buzzed.

The boy drained his milk glass and hopped down from his seat, giving his head a small shake to clear the dark, feathery hair from his eyes. A tune caught in his head and he began whistling to himself as he grabbed a fresh glass from the cabinet. He opened the fridge and scanned the items shelf by shelf until his eyes fell upon the deep red bottle he was looking for. He popped the top and let the crimson contents fill the glass halfway.

Carefree and whistling still, he set the glass of Kool-Aide down on the counter and opened the cabinet underneath the sink, a small spider retreating behind a bottle of Windex as he did so. He gingerly brushed his long, slender fingers across each of the bottles of cleaners and household chemicals until they closed around the white, plastic handle of a jug of bleach. Gently, he unscrewed the cap and added just a dash to the glass. When all the necessary ingredients were added to his concoction, he carefully took the glass and held it before his face, a line creasing his smooth, ageless brows as he eyed it with as much intensity as a seasoned chemist would. With a few slow, deliberate twirls of his wrist the two liquids became one and what was a sugary drink was now poison. As a finishing touch, he retrieved a small eye-drop bottle full of scent-neutralizer from his pocket that he had been working on for the past couple of days and carefully added two drops to the glass. A perfect time to test the experimental product.

Bleach-spiked Kool-Aide in hand, he made his way to the second floor of his shabby home in the thick of the slum that was Spinner's End. The sitting room windows cast gray squares of light along the steps and he took a moment to look out upon his world. Along the sidewalk a young man strode, wearing his pants so low he may as well have left home in his boxers. A middle-aged woman crossed paths with him and in the span of half a heartbeat their hands met, one containing a tightly-rolled wad of bills and the other containing a bag of fine white powder. _They don't call it Cokeworth for nothing..._Severus mused. A few yards down the street he could see an elderly woman working diligently with seed and spade to cultivate a garden that would never grow, as there was most likely enough radiation festering in the soil to give solid stone cancer. He felt his seventh toe itch at the thought.

He continued up the stairs and reached Viserus' room. On his door hung a large poster of some 'roided out, brain dead looking Quidditch star named Hans Grueber. Severus knocked. Viserus answered and looked down with irritation at the younger boy holding the red beverage, annoyed to be bothered whilst in his private quarters.

"And what do you want? Is Mandarys out of panties to sniff so you thought you'd come through my drawers?", His half-brother quipped, smirking.

Severus ignored the insult to he and his sister and offered up the Kool-Aide. "Made you a potion." He said with a smile.

Viserus scoffed and chuckled. "A potion? What in the thirteen layers of hell would you know about making potions?"

"I'm kidding.", Severus drawled with a cocked eyebrow.

The two stared at each other for a moment, one calm and cold as virgin snow and one annoyed and quizzical.

"You know", Severus chimed in, breaking the silence. "It's perfectly in your right to question me, dislike me...hate me even, and for that matter, fear me.", He spoke the last words in barely a whisper, serenading the older boy's impending rage.

Viserus' eyes narrowed and a small half-chuckle escaped the parted lips of his cold false smile. "What'd you say to me, _shitblood?"_

Severus rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "Nothing, brother. I'll just take this back downstairs.", His feathery black hair fluttered slightly as he casually turned his back to a fuming Viserus. A sudden hard clap on the shoulder by a tense hand kept him grounded to the spot he stood. Severus looked coolly into flaming hazel eyes.

"Give me the fucking drink."

_Too easy._

Viserus Prince was not a dull-witted boy. But Severus knew that while his wits were sharp, his pride was tragically soft. The boy would swallow cyanide if it could grow a mouth and taunt him.

His older brother ripped the glass from his hand, sloshing sticky sugary crimson poison down his porcelain pale fingers.

He held the glass under his nose, turned the liquid in his hand as if it were a fine wine and sniffed. "So! Sevvy _shitblood_ decided to try his grubby little hands at potion making? Well, it smells like nothing more than plain old Kool Aide to me. Heh, trying to pass a glass of Kool Aide off as a potion", he said half to himself. "You spend too much time with the laughing lard ball. You're starting to slip brother, starting to slip.", he waved a teasing finger at the younger boy, all suspicions forgotten. "Am I still allowed to taste it, brother? Or were you planning on saving it for Slughorn as your thesis?", Icy titters escaped Viserus' perfect toothed grin in amusement at his own bland humor.

Severus showed his open palms to the older boy and bowed slightly. "By all means, brother."

Viserus gave one more toothy chuckle and smirked to no one in particular. Severus' heart lept as his glittering black eyes watched Viserus raise the glass to his lips. Adrenaline cascaded through his small body and his breaths became more rushed. The glass pressing to the older boy's mouth was like a shot of heroin blossoming over a hardened junkie's system that had Severus looking on in frozen blissful anticipation.

"A potion he says-", Viserus' taunting words jammed in his throat as the Kool Aide concoction hit him. For a moment, it was all he could do to stand and stare blank faced down the hallway as his breath stilled and his face became pale as the hair on his head. His pupils had shrunk down to pinpoints as he turned his eyes to his brother. The usually sullen-faced boy was smiling with abandon as he watched his potion slowly murder Viserus from the inside out. The crooked-toothed grin looked about as natural on him as stilettos and a miniskirt, but he saved it for such occasions as this.

"So, brother,", Severus addressed Viserus casual as day. "How do you like my potion?"

Viserus made an attempt to speak, but all that came from his parted mouth were vile, gut-wrenching noises that sounded like a mix of hissing, gurgling, and the pathetic whine of a puppy learning to howl.

He made to take a step backward, but his legs betrayed him, folding like a cheap tuxedo the moment they pressed to the floor. The now-contaminated blood that was coursing through his veins painted his porcelain face in shades of chartreuse and stone gray putrescence. His eyes were bulging, shaking hazel orbs fixated upon his small, raven-haired assassin in frozen terror and savage agony.

The would-be murderer only looked on in silence. His large, hooked nose crinkled as his smiling face twisted further still in sadistic ecstasy. Inside his thin, bony chest his heart was adance with bloodlust. With a princely saunter he closed the distance between him and Viserus, the gaunt, stark shadow he cast blanketing his brother in darkness. One would only need look into his cold black eyes, hungrily gorging on the pathetic figure at his feet, to behold the preternatural dominance he displayed, making him seem far more man than child.

In utter panic Viserus opened a desperate hand to his brother...and that was when Severus knew he had broken the boy...for today at least. He reached a hand into the pocket of his jeans and curled his fingers around the glass vial inside. For just a moment more, he savored the sight of his brother's suffering as if it were the sweetest final drop of a fine champagne, shuddering like a climaxed lover in the final moments of his rapture.

Gracefully he drew the vial from his pocket, dangling it two-fingered by the neck. With crooked, pursed lips, he considered the boy, and then, putting his hands on his hip, he raised his left leg, rolling his foot by the ankle tauntingly in his brother's face.

"If you want the serum that's going to save your worthless skin you know what you have to do.", Severus offered, twirling the small container of amber liquid between his fore and middle finger.

A trembling, gray lipped grimace crossed Viserus' face. Summoning the last of the life in him he managed a dissenting nod. Severus' brow furrowed and swiftly he dealt a sidelong kick to the boy's jaw, causing his arms to fail him and his chest to slam onto the floor. Wordlessly, his brother shoved a more insistent foot into his face, and Viserus, debased and defeated, spent the last of his strength cupping Severus' shoe in his hand and gently drawing his sandpaper dry tongue across its sole.

Gooseflesh blossomed across the flesh of a very satisfied Severus and nearly purring he knelt down to his prone brother's level, smiling softly. He popped the tiny cork off the vial and with mock bedside manner ran his thin fingers through his brother's hair...and yanked sharply at the ends, forcing Viserus' eyes to meet his own.

"Wave your Hogwarts letter in my face again, brother, and you'll have to fish it out of your own cunt."

Severus, with his lesson now taught, shelved the murder in his heart and administer his antidote with cold professionalism, cradling Viserus' head in his right hand and coaxing the serum into his mouth with his left, as if he were nursing an infant.

When the contents of the vial were spent and his brother released his hold on him, the older boy just laid on the ground gasping for breath and gazing blankly at the ceiling, and then with a wet, choking sound he quickly flipped himself over and spilled the reddish-brown contents of his stomach onto the hardwood floor. A color that almost resembled a normal human shade flushed his cheeks, and heaving, he spilled more bloodied chunks from his mouth. For a time, Severus just silently watched as a river of blood, vomit and bile flowed from his brother like a scarlet-faced gargoyle. Of course, when Viserus found his voice again, the screaming began.

"MOOOM! TOBY! SEVERUS TRIED TO POISON ME!"

In half a heartbeat the sound of a small stampede could be heard shaking the walls, but, it was not Severus' parents running from the master bedroom down the hall to aid their eldest. This was the sound of small feet, attached to a stout, chubby body running up a flight of stairs...

With a speed that betrayed her size she was upon them in fragments of a second. Her blue-gray eyes absorbed the boy crawling on the floor through his own putrescence and her mouth looked at first as if she were trying to form the words 'what happened?', but before anything intelligible could escape her, the corners of her overly-large mouth split her face from ear-to-ear, baring her crooked, jagged, far too many teeth.

"Heh heh aha ahaha ahahahaha AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The hyena was in full force.

Mandarys Snape, pointing hand outstretched towards the suffering boy, continued to search for words to say to her brother, Severus, but all were swept away in gales of breathless laughter. She laughed until she was gasping as hard as Viserus, she laughed until tears welled in her eyes, she laughed until her limp, mouse brown hair fell in bedraggled tangles about her face, giving her the appearance of some sort of Jim Henderson-esque monster.

Eileen Prince sprung from her bed that morning to the familiar, but no less dreaded sound she had awoken to on so many others. The sound of screaming, the sound of cackling, and worst of all, the sound of silence. With a frustrated grunt, she threw the graying-white comforter from her legs and roughly shook her husband awake.

"Hmmrrggh?", Groaned the pile of covers beside her.

"They're at it again, Toby.", She responded curtly, taking a moment to brace herself for whatever pandemonium lay beyond the threshold of her bedroom.

When she opened her eyes to the corridor beyond, icy claws of terror sunk themselves into her heart at the sight of her firstborn on the floor. Her breath stopped in her chest as she sprinted forward and dove over him, covering his body with her own.

"Viserus?! Viserus, dearheart, what happened to you?!", She asked, shaking him slightly with panic-stricken hands. He began to speak, but his words were thundered over by a gruff, throaty roar.

"WHAT THE CHRIST DID YOU DO?!"

Tobias Snape's callused fist was gripped around a folded belt so tightly, it pulsed purple. As always, the stomping, heaving, spitting man's bulged eyes drifted right over Severus, as if he were a spider on the wall, and fell directly upon the short, stocky girl who shared so much of his own likeness.

"It was the girl, wasn't it, Vis?", Tobias asked his son, keeping his eyes firmly locked on Mandarys.

Viserus opened his mouth to answer, but was once again derailed Tobias' frenzied hollering.

"I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT WAS HER!", His cry was punctuated with a loud _crack_ as his black, leather belt lashed Mandarys across the mouth.

Mandarys, who's visage was never complete without a lash mark or two, took a finger and gingerly blotted a small trickle of blood that began to ooze from the corner of her mouth. Bemusedly, she gazed at her blood, then back at her father and raised a coy eyebrow. "Is that all you got, chucklehead?" And with that she threw her round rear end over the bannister and slid down, giving way to that morning's chase.

Eileen and Severus only looked on in mild distraction at the now almost daily occurrence. To date, Tobias had laid the blame on Mandarys for 27 of Viserus' injuries, 14 miscellaneous household accidents, Eileen's second miscarriage, 3 basement floodings, his receding hairline, 4 terrorist bombings, the decline of the middle class, 2 natural disasters, a part in the Kennedy assassination, the looming threat of communism, and 5 separate threats to the UN.

"You little SHIT! I swear I'm gonna send you back to the hell you came from!", Tobias bellowed as he bolted down the stairs after the child he detested so much.

Eileen, however, was not so blinded by imagined prejudice. She gently released her hold on Viserus and turned to the silent observer casually leaning on the wall. "Severus, what did you do to him?", she asked in the most reserved manner she could, giving her middle child a chance to come clean before she opened the gates of hell on him.

Severus only examined his own fingernails in cool silence.

"What have you done here, Severus? I won't ask again."

Silence.

With an animalistic growl, Eileen bounded on the young boy like a panther, gripping him by the collar of his shirt and lifting him off the ground to meet her at eye level.

"WHAT DID YOU DO!?", She screamed, shaking him.

"I thought you said you weren't going to ask again.", Severus replied coolly.

With another grunt, Eileen flung Severus to the floor, teeth bared and staring daggers at him. "I'll deal with you later.", She threatened through clenched teeth as she made to call St. Mungo's, turning her back towards the broken dream that was her family.


	8. Mirror in the Bathroom

"**Mirror in the bathroom recompense, for all my crimes of self-defense. Cures you whisper make no sense. Drift gently into mental illness." -_Mirror in the Bathroom, _English Beat**

_The rays of the setting California sunshine cast low, amber shadows off the various glimmering, stainless steel objects in the bathroom. _

_I dropped the rolled up dollar bill upon the vanity shelf and pulled up sharply, sniffling hard._

'Who wants to see me take off _snivellus' _trousers?', _An echo of a painful memory from nearly a decade past called out, but soon fell silent to a wave of numbness that washed over me as the stuff began to take hold, enough to stifle my heart and let my head weigh this ever taxing decision. I drew a deep breath and examined my own haggard face in the bathroom mirror. Seventy-two hours straight of sleeplessness, rumination, pro and con lists, and unfettered memories scratching at my brain had aged me a thousand years within the span of three days. I ran my fingers under the faucet and attempted to groom the crow's nest that my hair had become, to no avail. I opted to hide it under the golden crown of Severus the Conqueror. A thin rivulet of blood trickled out from my left nostril and I quickly wiped it away before walking out to the bedroom. I took the orb that was lying on the bedside table in hand, the accursed thing I had been studying relentlessly for hours on end, and adjourned to the balcony. _

_The balmy perfume of salty fresh beach air instantly soothed my irritated nose. I leaned over the gold and ivory bannister and held the orb before my face for what seemed like the nine-hundredth time. A curved, inverted Pacific ocean crashed upon a palm tree lined shore in its glassy surface, and within that, a ghostly image of Sybil Trelawney spoke the word of fate itself._

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

_I'd watched the Merlin forsaken thing so many times I had every damn word committed to memory._

"Neither can live while the other survives...born as the seventh month dies..."

_A warm, grassy Quidditch pitch flashed through my mind's eye, unbidden, the sun painting her hair as bright scarlet as a rose._

"Are you a pig, Sev?"

"No baby, I'm the butcher!"

_Her features turned from curious, to angry, and then faded into resigned disappointment. Her emerald eyes bore into mine. Always knowing, always weighing, always judging. She understood so much about me, yet at the same time so little. _

_But now it was my turn to judge. To be the judge, jury, and executioner. The crown of Severus the Conqueror weighed as heavy on my head as the decision weighed heavy on my soul._

"I'm sorry."

"Save your breath."

_And the ghosts of the past echoed..._

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

"I just thought...it's been years now, Sev, and I thought maybe it was about time we buried the hatchet, you know? I'm getting married soon, and I'd be honored if you- what- what's that on your arm?"

_And echoed. _

"Hello?"

"Hi...Listen, I don't...I don't know what this looks like-"

"How did you get this number?"

"It doesn't matter. I don't know where you are, Sev, I don't know what you're doing, what you've done, and truth be told I don't want to. Just please...tell me that you're ok..."

_With the sweet stuff creeping through my veins and soothing my nerves I felt like an outsider in my own body, as if I were watching a montage of sorrowful events from someone else's life. Yet still, her eyes managed to sting my drugged and desensitized heart. An unexplained, almost masochistic urge brought my hand to my cloak pocket, and without thinking I brought the photograph that was inside up to my face. _

_The glossy Polaroid showed two sunlight bathed happy children arm-in-arm, one angelic looking with hair so red it practically glowed, and one scrawny, dark, and awkward. A smile never really was quite becoming on me._

_The waves of the Pacific spilled and ebbed upon the smooth, powdery shoreline as I looked into the faces of children from a time long lost and passed. A moment in young lives that so strongly and misleadingly painted a picture of a bright and blissful future that would never happen, but instead would end in blood and tears...if I chose it so. If I chose it so. As of yet, nothing had been set in motion. The streets of England lay sleeping in the thick of pre-dawn darkness, the Order of the Phoenix and Voldemort both none the wiser. I could keep it that way...I could toss this piece of glass into the sea right now and no one would ever know, Lily would stay out of harm's way and nothing would change...If it just weren't for the fact that things had to. It all came down to that. I wish to Merlin things didn't have to be this way, but they had to. There was no point in agonizing any further over a decision I knew the answer to from the start._

_With shaking hands I fumbled for a cigarette, and struck a match behind my curved hand to shield it from the shore winds. As I inhaled, something my grandfather used to say suddenly came to me...though they were words of little comfort. _

"There is no progress without sacrifice, Severus, no progress without sacrifice..."

_I held the photograph up to the fading light and looked it over once more, gazing into the eyes of that little girl who even then everyone knew would grow into a striking beauty, a kind soul, a bright light in a world that was losing hope with every uneasy breath..._

_Who would come to be known as the brave young mother who's life was tragically cut short at the hands of the Dark Lord._

_What purpose did it serve to cling to the past when the future held so many possibilities?_

_I took another drag of the cigarette, then brought the lit end to the corner of the Polaroid. The smell of smoldering paper and plastic filled the air around me and I watched as the two cherubic faces warped into blackened kindling and were then devoured by flames. With a gentle blow I snuffed out the small fire, sending glowing red-black embers to be carried by the ocean breeze into the fleeting dusk horizon, chasing the last light of the sun._

She was already dead to me, anyway.

…...

The harsh fluorescent lighting of St. Mungo's emergency room highlighted every single frown, stress, and worry line that had been carved into Eileen Snape's face for the past eight years. She sat slumping exhaustedly in the uncomfortable waiting room chair and laid her head in her hand, as if somehow obscuring her face could hide her from the embarrassment of this being their fifth trip to St. Mungo's since Severus was born. Not counting of course, the event of Severus' birth here.

Eileen had aged a lifetime since that day. No longer was she the smooth faced, doe eyed, exotic looking and sounding young woman who had arrived at Cokeworth so long ago. Spinner's End had become a part of her and she a part of it, leaving her indistinguishable from any other weathered soul that walked the streets of that impoverished, squalid town. As fatigue crept up on her, her mind wandered to the question that had become the theme of her life: _Where had things gone so wrong? _How had her life so drastically crashed and burned right under her nose? Why had her fresh start gone so sour? No matter how she tried to dodge the thought, deep down she knew the answer to those question sat beside her.

Her second son sat casually examining his slender fingers with his usual look of calm boredom on his face as if it were just any other morning. No concern, no fear, no remorse. In fact, she could scarcely recall a single time in her life that she ever caught Severus showing such emotions. As far as she knew, he only had a range of three: Quiet serenity, anger, and a bizarre, sadistic playfulness that she was entirely too familiar with. Her father had it in spades. She saw it quite literally from the time Severus spoke his first words at the age of two: "Eat shit, Viserus."

Severus had uttered them loudly at his brother whilst he crawled at the top of the stairs. Viserus came charging at the small boy, but Severus managed to deadweight himself between Viserus' feet, sending him flying rear-over-head down the stairs. A bloody, bone-shattered, unconscious Viserus resulted in trip number one to St. Mungo's, and one macing, an electrocution, a couple of 3rd degree burns and a poisoning later, here they were again. Eileen didn't know how to make excuses for this anymore. What were you supposed to say to people when one of your children was hell bent on killing the other? What is one to do with a boy who develops a knack for devious sadism before motor skills? What kind of parent-

"Is Viserus going to die, mom?"

"What?", Eileen responded, startled out of her reverie by a round-faced, 7-year-old girl leaning on her chair.

"Viserus, is he going to die?"

_You would like that wouldn't you?_ "No, Mandarys, the healers have managed to flush the bleach out of his system and he's recovering as we speak.", she told her daughter with a gritted-toothed smile.

"Oh", softly spoke a disappointed Mandarys. Quickly becoming bored, her pale, blue-gray eyes darted to an inviting bowl of candy that had been charmed with glowing letters reading "take one" sitting on the desk of the nurses' station. She made her awkward, chubby run over and dug her hand into it the moment no one was looking and shoved as much candy in her face as her round cheeks could hold.

Eileen's little girl had a leaning toward corpulence every since she was a baby. She couldn't even look at her without seeing a recolored version of Aunt Jenny's childhood photos. _My little girl_...she mused within her head.

For it was the fact that she was Eileen's little girl that was her only saving grace which granted her passage to this world. She was just shy of a year younger than Severus. When she had broke the news to her husband, he had cracked up and guffawed drunkenly in her face, and when the tears welled up in her eyes, so did the tears in his. They had spent the rest of that night huddled in the cold of their bedroom discussing options. It was decided that an abortion would cost far less money in the long run than another child. The EPA had been cracking down hard on Cokeworth Energy and Tobias being the next one to be laid off was a fear that hung over their heads every day and night.

Eileen had gone to the women's clinic the very next morning. It was best they nip it in the bud as soon as possible. If only they hadn't asked her if she wanted to see the baby, and if only she hadn't said yes, and if only she hadn't seen it as their first little girl, and if only that fact hadn't sent her straight home with a baby still in tow, and if only it had been worth it in the end. Good God in heaven if it had only been worth it.

Eileen and Tobias Snape were never blessed with a little girl. They were instead cursed with a sentient, physical representation of Tobias' drunken tirades and Eileen's regretful tears. A work of art in sadistic irony. If they had needed any further convincing that the very cosmos themselves were laughing at the absurdity of their dysfunctional family, Mandarys Snape was that proof. For it seemed that Mandarys, even at the age of seven, held fast to one simple philosophy: That life and everything in it was a joke. Civility, empathy, legality, and humanity be damned, if there was a prank to be had, then it would be had at any expense. She was a child that smiled often and laughed readily, as if she was privy to some in-joke that no one else knew.

Her primary source of entertainment was none other than the ever intensifying antics of Severus. Wherever Severus was, the laughing, round girl was not far behind. Whenever Eileen heard the hyena-esque guffaws of Mandarys and her older brother's low, soft chuckle she could bet 50 galleons that it was time to either rush Viserus to St. Mungo's, apologize to a neighbor, call the fire department, bribe a police officer, or explain to the F.B.I and Secret Service that no, there were going to be no "snipers with nano-technology weapons camping in the trees of the White House" tomorrow unless 5 Million U.S Dollars were left outside the oak tree outside of Cokeworth Elementary. Severus had both a co-conspirator and an audience in Mandarys, a symbiotic relationship that rained terror and chaos upon their family which only raged on and on as her two younger children grew older.

Viserus was no angel either. The constant assualts upon him by his siblings had turned her calm, happy toddler into a high strung, angry, reflexively abrasive pre-teen. Her firstborn had developed a shell of pure brimstone, piss and vinegar over the years to keep him on his toes from the younger two. He didn't really open up to anyone, except perhaps the bevy of young girls that even at the age of 11 had taken to him. Could she really blame them either? Viserus was a rare gem in their family, of bright eyes, a defined jawline and a smile that beamed confidence. He was of pure Prince blood, through and through, unlike Mandarys, a chubby little girl with Tobias' features, and Severus, who Eileen had always considered to be a rather rat-faced child.

Eileen's train of thought had suddenly been derailed when her dark eyes ran across a handsome face on the lobby television screen. There was some kind of live music program on and the Beach Boys were performing when all of a sudden they brought a guest on stage. The tall, handsome stranger smiled shyly, his dark brown eyes glittering in the summer sun. He had thick, shiny, shoulder length chocolate brown hair that danced about his shoulders in loose, lazy waves. His shy, humble grin was framed by a short yet full beard.

"Now who have you got here for us, Terry?", asked the Beach Boys' lead singer.

The scrawny young man named 'Terry' looked to his tall, dark, and handsome companion and said: "Why don't you introduce yourself, Charlie?"

'Charlie' nervously took up the microphone and addressed the crowd. "Hey there ladies and gents, my name is Charles", he flipped his soft, thick hair away from his face and shot a piercing look straight into the camera with glittering dark eyes, "Charles Manson." In one swift, fluid motion he brought the guitar that was strapped over his shoulder to the front of him and began to tune it slightly. "I thought I'd stick to a song that would bring my friends, the Beach Boys, some money today. This one here is for the youngsters!", he called out with mello enthusiasm.

His fingers nimbly flew over the instrument, producing an airy, jubilant melody, one that filled Eileen's mind with images of summer and the seashore. It was then that a far more heavenly sound fell upon the silent crowd, it was the voice of Charles Manson raised in song.

_Your home is where you're happy,_

_It's not where you're not free._

He may have been singing a youngsters' ditty, but his voice was the most sexual music she had heard in a long, long time. A young, rough masculinity enveloped in a rich sweetness, like black coffee garnished with caramel.

_Your home is where you can be who you are, 'cause you just want to be._

_You can have a castle, and diamonds for all to see._

_Though you'll never have that piece of mind,_

_Until you've learned to be free._

His sparkling eyes, his angelic voice which seemed to glide over every range of notes perceivable to the human ear, his smile charming enough to cure cancer, Eileen did not know what to focus on. Charles Manson was the kind of man who had such a presence to him the human system did not have enough senses to take him in at once.

_So burn all your bridges..._

_Leave the old life behind..._

She caught a snippet of conversation to the left of her, Severus and Mandarys absorbed in a private discussion as usual, but she tuned them out as quickly as they caught her attention. Mandarys was pointing to the television screen and it had sounded like she whispered the words "I have a bad feeling about that one." _What would she know about music?, _Eileen thought to herself

_You can do what you want to do_

_Because you're strong in your mind._

She drank his words like champagne. His voice coupled with the melody melted away her stress and anxiety like steel at a foundry, that was until a bleach-blonde, gum chewing, technician shuffled out of the large double doors and called "Mrs. Snape!"

With a heavy sigh and a forced smile, she turned away from the wonder that was Charlie Manson and greeted the staff member with all the Sunday morning pleasantry she could muster, but she could practically hear aloud what lay behind her heavily painted eyes: 'That Snape woman is here again.' With an even faker smile, the young lady led her down the brightly lit bustling corridor of St. Mungo's. Discreetly, she popped a quaalude from her purse, gazing absently over room after room of hexes gone haywire, Quidditch accidents, animal attacks, and one practically ancient man who was screaming to his family that he had 'saved this country's sorry candied arse' in World War I and would not be leaving here with a modded wand for the elderly. Eileen had only one thing on her mind: Get out of here without an encounter from Children's Services. She had managed to be free of them thus far, but she didn't know how many more hospital visits it would take before she was on their radar.

The Tech finally opened the door to room 1202 and led her inside. It was there she was greeted by a weak, reassuring wave from her eldest son and the beaming red face of Dr. Archibald McDermott.

"Aaaaaahh! Mrs. Snape! My best customer!", He bellowed in his loud, Scottish-tinged dialect.

"Why Dr. Archibald, we see you so often how could I not be? Why you could probably put your children through college on Viserus alone.", she let out an overly loud titter of nervous laughter. _Be easy, make a joke of it. If you take it lightly perhaps he will too..._

"Well Mrs. Snape, we gave 'im the best flushing potions that we had, that we did. We'll fix him up with some vitamins and he'll be right as rain, I tell ya, right as rain! Ain't we gonna be, lad!", Dr. McDermott excitedly clapped Viserus on the shoulder, causing him to grunt and almost double over in a wave of nausea, but Viserus managed to catch himself and offer Dr. McDermott a waspish smile and nod. Eileen gently took her son tightly in her arms and kissed him on the forehead, asking him how he was feeling and if there was anything she could do. Of course, It would be a lot easier to play up the doting parent angle if Viserus wasn't swatting at her to get off of him like a wildcat. Finally, when he had had enough he simply shoved her, sending her stumbling towards Dr. McDermott, who caught her with not quite the gracefulness of a dancer.

Eileen straightened out her hair and gave him a girlish giggle that was edged with anxiety sharp as razors. "He's..um..cranky, you know...bleaching and all..." _Jesus Christ that's terrible._ She could feel her face turning about as read as Dr. McDermott's hair. Words had completely failed her. She did not know what else she could possibly say to make this situation seem any better than it was. Her last resort was to change the subject.

"So! How...shall we pay you...Dr. McDermott?", She could feel a tiny rivulet of sweat roll down her forehead and settle in the crease of her nose.

Dr. McDermott offered her his best Scotsman smile, but took on a tone that was far more business-like. "Mrs. Snape, I think it would be best if we continue this conversation in my office..privately."

_Shit._ Her face flashed from scarlet to stark white in an instant as all pretense fell. She could feel her heart pounding in her ears, drumming out all other thought. She could already see Children's Services busting in the room and taking Viserus away and hauling her and Tobias to jail. Visions of a cold, damp cell in Azkaban flooded her mind; Judges screaming for her and her husband to answer for their crimes against parenting; Viserus tucked away in some foster home in a trailer park on some forgotten expanse of the Midwest; Severus and Mandarys pissing and dancing on her and Toby's grave, their twisted, demonic faces full of bloodlust; cornering her, coming closer and closer to reveal their eyes as empty sockets and their jaws distended with sharp, pointed, teeth, ready to tear the flesh off of her face... "Mrs. Snape.", she looked to Dr. McDermott's patient grin as he held the door to his small office open for her, snapping her back to reality. "Yes sir, of course, sir." She managed to return his smile by the grace of her quaaluude alone and took a seat in his office as he shut the door behind them.

He sat across from her and removed his glasses, his manner remaining cordial yet serious. She let her eyes linger between the clock, the various filing cabinets which lined the walls, and a hoaky motivational poster which pictured a kitten suspended from a clothesline, captioned with the words 'hang in there baby.' Anything to keep from meeting his eyes.

"Now Mrs. Snape, you know that we here at St. Mungo's try our best to do our jobs and not..pry into the personal matters of our patients. However, when a child comes to us with his fourth serious, and better yet, _unusual_ injury within a two-year period, we have certain, how should I say this, obligations to investigate as to whether the child in question is living in a..._safe_ environ-"

"It's the middle boy.", she cut across him.

"Pardon me?"

"The middle boy, Severus. Mandarys too, the youngest, she's in on it." It was like verbal diarrhea that propelled itself from her mouth. Her last line of defense, the truth, seasoned with some sobs for good measure. If the authorities were coming to get her and there was nothing she could do about it, she may as well let everyone know who the real criminals were.

Dr. McDermott rubbed his prickly, ginger beard. "Are you meaning to tell me that it's the younger boy who's behind all this nastiness happening to the older one?"

She let her body be wracked by an exaggerated sob. "I don't know what to do with him, Doctor, I've tried everything. I've tried punishment, I've tried talking to him, I've tried diet changes, nothing helps." , She managed to force some light tears down her cheeks. "He's just...out of control." She put on her best 'damsel in distress' face and let her gaze slowly meet his, crocodile tears and all.

She watched as his bright blue eyes looked deeply into her dark ones and quickly he pursed his mouth and dropped his gaze to the floor. In that one unspoken communication, Eileen knew that she had gained his sympathy.

"Well, I...I'm sorry, lassie, he spoke softly, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. I didn't know it was as much as all that.", He stroked Eileen's back as she appeared to be weeping in earnest. "Tell me, what are this younger boy's...activities? What are his interests?"

Eileen pulled her face from her hands and sniffed hard. "I..I don't really...reading, I suppose, and potion making.", She added in stern certainty. She noticed that he had been dabbling in her spare potion equipment since he had hands enough to hold them...specifically the poisons.

"Ah, well there's the problem now, Lassie. A boy of that age needs a way of tirin' himself! Getting himself wound down! Ridding the excess energy from himself-"

"I'm sorry?"

"A sport Mrs. Snape. A boy endowed with that kind of...aggression aught to be involved in some sort of athletic activity. I'm sure if the youngster had an outlet for his energy he'd be easier to handle at home.", Dr. McDermott offered.

"Really? What would you suggest?" Eileen could finally breathe again knowing that the focus of the conversation had been taken off of her and she intended to keep it that way.

"How about Quidditch?", He suggested with a grin that practically split his face in half.

She took in a hissing breath through her teeth. "Yeah...I don't know if contact sports would necessarily be the best thing for Severus.", She explained kindly. She could already picture the parents blowing up their phone lines about their children being dismembered. "Isn't there anything he could do...alone?"

Dr. McDermott paused and stroked his beard. "I suppose there are things like rock climbing, or archery or gymnastics."

"That's perfect!", She exclaimed suddendly.

Dr. McDermott eyed her curiously.

"I just remembered, there's this gymnastics place not far from where we live. Seniore uh...Seniore some guy or other. I don't see what could possibly go wrong with that."

"Aye, it's settled then. Gymnastics it is."

"I could enroll him before the day's out.", Eileen added as she gathered her things up and headed for the door, but before she could walk out his red, meaty hand gently caught her by the shoulder. "And Mrs. Snape," he added, his voice nothing but cold business. "I shall know if you don't."

Her eyes met his, apprehensively.

"Understand, Mrs. Snape, I know it can't be easy trying to keep two unruly children out of trouble, but...if there is another incident like this...I will have no choice but to get the authorities involved.", He stated like a chiding old father.

"Mark my words Dr. McDermott, things are going to change from here on out.", there was an awkward pause as he offered her a wan smile. "And thank you."

…...

"Why don't _you_ go to gymnastics? You could use it a lot more than I could.", Severus drawled sarcastically, as he insultingly ran his eyes up and down his mother's body.

Mandarys snorted as her hyena cackles filled the room. This was, as ever, the height of comedy for her.

"Oh, like YOU have room to talk!", Mom screamed at Mandarys, who was clutching her sides.

Even the ever reserved Severus couldn't help but chuckle unexpectedly over that, silencing his sister abruptly. They exchanged some piece of communication through their eyes and Mandarys looked to the floor.

"Do you have ANY idea how much trouble you almost got me in?," Mom spat. "It's no joke next time, You know? They're getting the cops involved, and when they come, they'll be taking you away, not me.", She threatened.

Severus didn't hesitate to call her on her bluff. He faux gasped and took on a face of obnoxious surprise. "What would we do without you?", he asked in a sarcastic voice of concern.

"You two would be separated for one thing.", She replied in a satisfied tone. "And then who would read for poor Mandarys?", She sniped, looking directly into the young girl's eyes. She was stressed, high, and wasn't pulling any punches tonight, going straight for Mandarys' sore spot.

Mandarys stood up, anger flaming beneath her stone gray eyes. She snobbishly looked Mom up and down. "Well...", she told her, biting her lip. "Your shirt looks like a dishrag.", She said, laughing and promptly heading off to their room in the basement of the house, leaving Mom and him alone to duke it out.

"So, getting back on topic," Severus told Eileen crossly, "this is the dumbest idea I've ever heard in my lifetime."

"This isn't my 'idea' Sev, this is actual consequences for your actions, a miraculous concept to you.", Mom rolled her eyes.

"And you had to go with the most chickenshit thing you could possibly think of?", Severus raised his voice. "Seriously mom? Gymnastics? Jesus fucking Christ."

"You watch your goddamn language, young man!", Mom shouted. "Look..", She sighed, "It's an hour after school each day, and it's only two streets down. It's the least you can do for almost killing Viserus.", She chided, drawing a cigarette from a pack on the coffee table.

Severus narrowed his eyes. "He was asking for it more than a half-naked mudblood bitch at a truck stop on Knockturn Alley past midnigh-"

His sentence was punctuated by a hard, stinging, backhanded slap from his mother. He looked into her crimson red face as she growled at him through teeth that looked like they were ready to shatter. "What did I tell you about that word?", She asked.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, Mother, I meant to say _Shitblood."_

"AAAAAAAAUUUGH!", She screeched as she tangled her slender fingers in her hair and turned her back to him for a moment. "Where do you even learn this filth?"

Severus scoffed "_I_, unlike _you_, Mother, actually get out of the house once in a while. Some of us actually have a life, you know.", He told her condescendingly. That's all he would care to indulge that thread of conversation, however. He didn't want his mother to get wise and start hiding the Floo powder.

"Well that's all well and good, Sev," She remarked with exacerbation and strained sarcasm. "Because you're about to be getting out of the house a lot more! You'll either be at Gymnastics class tomorrow after school, or don't bother coming home."

"Like you would even-"

"I already have the number of a good magical locksmith. You're not the only one who knows people on Knockturn Alley." She said with the smug satisfaction of finally one-upping him. As intense as Severus' desire to have the last word always was, he had his doubts that his mother was bluffing, he'd already stretched her tolerance too thin. He decided that he'd rather goof off at some godawful girls' sport for an hour than have to roomie up with the town loony in the storm drain.

"Fine, I'll humor you.", he stated flatly. "But let me tell you this", he flashed his mother a sharp look as she exhaled a cloud of gray smoke that hung in the air of the drab, ramshackle living room. "If that pathetic snot upstairs doesn't pull his head out of his arse and start watching himself, he's _going_ to get what's coming to him. That's not a threat, not a promise, that's a fact."

His mother took on a scowl that could turn milk sour and got about two inches from his face. "The same could be said for you.", She growled to him coldly.

They stared daggers into each other in an unspoken display of dominance. Despite all of Eileen's threats and scoldings, she let her gaze be the first to fall, turning away from her son in disgust and retreating to the kitchen. Severus ran his fingers through his black, feather-like hair as he felt a budding headache begin to throb. With a stressed sigh, he made his way for the basement and disappeared into the darkness that shrouded the stairway down.

Immediately, a large insect lunged for him so fast he registered the feeling of it's twitching, long legs on his chest before he even saw it. His hand shot out reflexively and smacked the offending creature off of him and onto the concrete steps below where he crushed it hard under his boot with a satisfying _crunch._ These bloody cave crickets crept about the basement no matter how many times they sprayed or how many glue traps they laid down.

Thin tendrils of smoke drifted through a crack in the small basement window as Mandarys casually leaned over it dragging on a cigarette. He walked over and picked up the pack of _Newports _beside her and drew one for himself. _"Incendio.", _he softly spoke, causing a small flame to materialize in his cupped hand. He couldn't help but grin every time he pulled the stunt, wandless magic was no small feat for an eight-year-old. His sister only looked over and rolled her eyes. Mandarys certainly had magic, anyone could attest to that, but as for using it in spells she was all thumbs. Even the simplest of tasks became disasters under her command. He thought back to a time when she attempted a "no bones" spell on some buffalo wings and inadvertently transfigured their father into Alex Jones. Even now, you could still hear Tobias occasionally break into some drunken rant about how jet fuel can't melt steel beams.

"So you're really going to ballet class or whatever tomorrow?", Mandarys asked while trying to stifle a grin.

Severus blew smoke in her face. "It's gymnastics, you twit.", He paused to take another drag. "And who knows? Maybe it'll actually be fun."

"Fat chance with the creep who runs that place.", She stated plainly.

"What do you mean?" If there was one thing his sister could be trusted for, it was town gossip, the dirt on anyone and everyone, and all other assorted manner of Spinner's End lore.

"I heard it from Lucy Xiang in Mrs. Ganz's class that Seniore Jappepi is some kind of a weirdo. She wouldn't get to into it, but she said something about him being a PTSD case over World War II. Anyhow, her mother pulled her out of his class.", She told him indifferently.

Severus sighed and snuffed his cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table. Mandarys took one long, last drag and did the same.

"So", He addressed Mandarys, "What's on the agenda for tonight's reading?" He knew better by now than to deny his sister her nightly session of being read to, as she would only pester him until he complied.

"Hmmm", Mandarys mused, making her way to the shabby bookshelf in the ill-lit musty corner of their basement.

The brick and concrete hovel they lived in was certainly nothing special, but it was theirs all the same. Beneath the stony shadows across from the bookshelf was a minimalist laboratory that Severus had set up for himself from his mother's old potions equipment. On the other side of the room lay the window, a small, second hand television set sat on a table next to an old short wave radio back from Tobias' Navy days. In the center of the room, underneath the basic, pull-string lamp lay the small bed that he and his sister had to share.

"Tales of Beedle the Bard? Nah, that shit's for babies", she mumbled half to herself, pushing the book aside. "American Psycho? Mmmm, maybe another time...Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustace Mullins? Already read-huh?", She cut herself off abruptly, causing Severus to look in her direction.

"What is it?" he asked, curious.

"There's something shiny here, behind the bookshelf." She squatted by the tiny space between the wall and the bookshelf and squinted her eyes. She turned her hand inward so as to reach into the small gap, and a second later she was drawing out a book that fallen behind the shelf. She blew away the large buildup of dust that had lain on the sedentary object for who knows how many years, to reveal its bombastic cover art of a giant, belligerent looking space alien sporting naked men and women on leashes crawling on all fours. The bizarre picture was inlaid with colored foils to give it its shiny, holographic surface. It was titled "SINS OF THE PUPPET MASTER" in blaring loud, red, lenticular capital letters.

Mandarys gingerly ran her chubby fingers over the book and opened it, letting her eyes fall onto a message that had been inscribed on the inside of its cover. "Sev, come over here and read this for me.", she waved her hand in his direction.

"You come over here," he told her coldly, "And while you're at it, how about you learn to read? You're seven-years-old now, you're getting to an age where it's becoming weird.", he remarked.

"I TOLD YOU!", she hollered back, "I've tried! The letters become all scrambled! It isn't fair!"

"Fine, fine, fine. Just bring it here.", He patted the vacant area of the bed to his side and his sister scurried over, holding the open book to his face.

"Look", she pointed to the lower-left corner of the inside cover where someone had scribbled a note in loopy, exaggerated cursive.

He took the book from her hands, held it up to eye-level, and began to read aloud: "__To my sweet Eileen, may the light of truth illuminate you always. Yours truly, R. Jon Delacour.__

_"Holy shit, he's talking about Mom!", Mandarys let out a hyena-esque chuckle._

_"Wait a minute." Severus said sharply, examining the front and back cover of the book, this is that book that Honest Jon is always peddling about. Something about space aliens and some other conspiracy theorist crackhead drivel."_

_"Didn't know that guy was on a first-name basis with mom.", His sister commented. "He must be a Spinner's End lifer, how depressing.", She sighed. "I wonder what his story is..."_

_"Just another drifter that's washed up on the armpit of East England, I suppose."_

_"Read it to me."_

_"Wha-Why? This is nothing but some homeless meth-head's ramblings.", He complained._

_"You don't know that, Sev. You only limit yourself by being so judgmental.", she lightly chided._

_"I don't know why this shite would even be worth the time."_

_"You aught not be so close-minded, you never know from where you might learn something."_

_"Fine.", He told her as they both climbed under the quilt blanket. He turned to the beginning of the first chapter, determined to get this nonsense over with. She leaned against his shoulder as he began to read aloud: "In the beginning there was the Annunaki, our ancestors most pure, by whose guidance we were able to become the only intelligent race of animals on this planet we have come to call Earth. The Annunaki were in possession of a full range of supernatural abilities, including telepathy, teleportation, time travel, and the ability to suck their own knobs-"_

_"That's NOT what it says!", he was interrupted by a hard punch to his shoulder. _

_"It's not like you would be able to tell the difference anyway!", He quipped._

_"Read it right."_

_"Fine."_

_"The Annunaki gave man the miracle he began to know as transcendent consciousness..." He continued to read the barely comprehensible mess of fantasy and pseudoscience until he knew his sister was fast asleep beside him. When he knew it was safe to do so, he fell silent and laid the book to rest on the nightstand. He gently peeled the covers off of himself and walked across the cold, hard, concrete floor towards the steps. Quietly he closed the door to their bedroom behind him and made his way to the bathroom across the hall. _

_He was still greatly annoyed by the fact that his agenda tomorrow would be interrupted by a useless, girly, prance-about lesson with some freak. It was the last thing he needed. He took a moment to examine his own body in the bathroom mirror. His dark hair and eyes stood in sharp contrast to his milky-white skin. A small, bony frame with scrawny arms and legs stood draped in boxer shorts and a black t-shirt against the stark white walls. He was not exactly muscular, but didn't completely lack for brawn. He had often been told that skinny men had the stamina to fight down to the wire. Gymnastics was going to be a joke for him, it's a shame that he even had to bother with it. To prove his point to himself, he shifted his weight backwards and jumped, attempting to backflip into a handstand. While he got a good amount of air, he came down sloppy, with his arms and legs flailing about everywhere, causing him to slip and land hard on his chest with a loud ___thud.___ He groaned out the last of the remaining air in his lungs. _

_**A/N: Managed to get this done despite getting into a really ugly car crash over some ice and almost dying. Car is totaled and I'm going to be in debt for a long time. So, it'll just be me, home with Sins of the Puppet Master. Hopefully this means I'll actually work faster. Hope you all take something from this story. Be careful on the roads, black ice is no joke.**_


	9. Rude Boy

"**It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep." -Benito Mussolini **

_My edgy, quavering fingers nursed a dull, pulsing ache that beat at my temple like a goddamn drum. The mid-morning light beaming through the stony, gothic windows of Hogwarts shot daggers straight into the back of my skull and the cheap, gas station sunglasses I wore did little to hamper it. My body felt as if I had spent last night driving a dump-truck through a nitroglycerin plant and truth be told I might have been better off if that were the case. _

Strangers in the night, exchanging glances.

Wondering in the night, what were the chances?

_I still heard Little Barty crooning over an audience so gripped by suspense and anticipation that none dared to even breathe. It was the last thing I took in before Rookwood, in his ever typical fashion, did the cheapest thing possible and hook me before the fight had begun. _He may have taken the first shot, but God be damned if I didn't take the last...

_I took down the corridor in long, quick strides hoping no one would stop to offer me meaningless words and mindless small-talk. I had nearly reached the threshold of my dungeon office when out from around the corner, like a pair of vermin, I spied Deter Farnsworth, manager of the Slytherin Quidditch team, and Francis Benson, team Seeker, trotting faithfully by his side, making a swift bee-line for me. I froze in panic and immediately drew my keys from my cloak pocket, but it was as if they became an ancient riddle artifact, like a Roman dodecahedron, within my cupped hands. The tiny silver and brass objects lost all meaning as I fumbled and fumbled, looking for the key to my office, but I had become all thumbs. _

_I could feel their foul mouth breathing pervade my airspace and I knew that all hope was lost._

"_Professor Snape! Excuse me, pardon me, Professor Snape!", Deter called out despite the fact he was about an arms' length from me. Years of Quidditch had erased all concept of an 'indoor voice' for him.  
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"_What! What do you want?", I spat at them. My head was pounding too hard to even think of a sarcastic remark._

_He began aggressively waving a fist full of rolled papers toward the indifferent heavens, waving and shouting to an absent and uncaring God. "This practice schedule is absolute bollocks, I tell you! McGonagall has Gryffindor completely monopolizing the pitch during prime hours. Why should we have to freeze our balls off in the dark while those clowns get to practice at midday-"_

_I roughly grabbed the papers from his hand so I wouldn't have to suffer any more of his screeching. I palm slapped them open against the wall and saw that indeed McGonagall had Gryffindor bogarting the pitch harder than a pack of smokes in a Turkish prison. Nonetheless, it was first class of the day, old Dumbles' had stuck a new student in with the third years I taught at this hour, and I had the shrieking nerve-endings of my every throbbing, torn muscle to contend with._

"_I'll talk to her sometime this evening, Deter. Get to class"_

"_But Sir! The Quidditch Semi-finals are next week-"_

"_DETER!", I snapped so sharply the whining boychild almost physically jumped back. "You're the Slytherin team manager, are you not?"_

"_Y-yes.", he quavered._

"_Then manage!", I growled at him through grit teeth, shoving the papers back his way._

_With a thoroughly blanched face, he swallowed hard and bowed his head shakily._

"_Yes sir, of course, sir. Come on Francis, we still have all that equipment to check and that new order of uniforms is coming in today." _

_Francis shot a nervous look to me before he followed his halfwit buddy down the hallway. With a heavy sigh I chugged down the coffee in my hand I had all but forgotten about, chucked the styrofoam cup in the trash, and walked through the dungeon door to another classroom full dunderheads that in a perfect world would have wound up no more than stains on their parents bedsheets. My eyes fell upon acne-pockmarked face over acne-pockmarked face, each one expressing more misery and stress than the last until I turned my attention to the roll-call sheet._

If only they knew I hated this just as much as they do.

…...

The cold plywood surface of a schooldesk began to imprint itself on Severus Snape's face as he rest his cheek upon it within his folded, outstretched arms. On the edge of his hearing, the tobacco scratched voice of a middle aged woman droned on about fancy bread and hearts and heads; the usual useless drivel that the tax payers of Spinner's End pissed their money away on for kids to learn. Above the door, a clock ticked by the last 5 minutes, which always seemed to turn to hours at this time, until dismissal.

Not that there was anything to be excited about, of course, considering after class he would be heading straight to a goddamn prance-about lesson. Another one of his vapid moron mother's bright ideas of 'parenting.' If there was anyone who needed a hobby in their family it was her. At least Dad had a job, Mandarys had pranking and gambling, and Viserus had Quidditch, as imbecilic of a sport as it was (though still leagues ahead of goddamn gymnastics). Mom mostly occupied her time popping Quaaludes, talking on the phone, watching television and pondering the 34 years of wrong life choices she's made.

The sound of the bell was a relief all the same, as he badly needed a change of scenery from white walls and his wrinkle-faced teacher. He slung his backpack over one shoulder and made a beeline for the door. As he took long strides past rows upon rows of lockers and wove his way through students pouring out of their classrooms, Ricardo Gonzales hailed him down.

"Ayyy, Sev!", he greeted, "You wanna come down with me and Tuco to the 7/11? We're gonna 'hey mister' for some smokes."

As tempting as the invitation was, he had to reply "No. I'm...busy."

"Busy doing what?", Ricardo asked, innocently enough.

"Doing...Stuff!", Severus snapped defensively. "What are you, my Dad?", he joked.

"_Si solamente!_ Then I could get between the sheets with that sweet MILF of yours!", He shouted amicably with a toothy grin.

"Why don't you try it? She's probably too high at any given time to notice.", he quipped back.

"Ayyyyy! You're alright Sev man! You're alright!", he waved a pointed finger to the air and took off on his own way.

Without further interruption Severus pushed open the glass front door and stepped out into another pewter-skied Spinner's End afternoon. The air carried an odor upon it that was 5 parts smog, 2 parts car exhaust, 3 parts sewage, 1 part marijuana smoke, and just a smattering of radioactive waste. To Severus, however, it was just the smell of home.

He made his way from Cokeworth County Elementary and hung a left on Cedar street, in the direction of Seniore Jappepi's Gymnastics Studio. A damp chill bit needles into his face and made his finger bones sore while a parade of ramshackle Buicks, Chevy Cavaliers, Fords and all manner of dirt-cheap cars passed him by. On the corner, a man who looked like he'd been using meth since the Eisenhower administration performed a shaky, spastic dance for spare change. He waved to Severus as he passed and he returned the gesture with a curt nod.

He continued down the road, taking in the sights, smells, and sounds of the urban decay surrounding him, wondering what his first Gymnastics lesson would entail. How much of a freak could this Jappepi guy be? Instructing kids to tumblesault about all day didn't seem like a job that would attract the loonies (though Spinner's End had no shortage of them.) Either way, how challenging could the first day even be?

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he suddenly heard the sound of glass crashing against the pavement and a young man shrieking. It was coming from an alleyway about half a block in front of him. Curious, he quickly walked over, nearly colliding with Mandarys as she darted out from it.

"YOU BITCH! YOU FAT ASSED CHEATING BITCH! THAT WAS MY ENTIRE LIFE SAVINGS!", a boy was screaming at the top of his lungs.

Severus peered in the narrow opening, 4 pre-teen boys were sitting indian-syle around a game of cards.

"You're 11, Dalton. I think you'll be able to rebuild.", She told him mockingly, holding back a chuckle.

"You're a card counter! A bloody card counter! I know you are, you filthy scamming whore!"

"Speculation is not admissible in court, Dalton. And what do you take me for? The goddamn Rain Man? Next you'll be telling me I can read your mind.", She punctuated the statement with a sudden burst of laughter, though Severus didn't see what was quite so funny.

"I don't give half a shit, Mandarys! You're banned from this game! Do you hear me!? BANNED!", tears were beginning to well in the hysterical boy's eyes while his friends on either side of him looked on in awkward discomfort. "If you ever come back here, you'll be sent home in a bodybag!", he threatened. "You hear me!? A bodybag!"

Mandarys merely rolled her eyes. "Oy vey, Dalton, you're a loser at games _and_ a loser at life. You already dress the part of a broke-ass chump, now you can play the part as well. Seriously, your shirt looks like a dishrag."

"GET OUT OF HERE!", he screeched so loud his voice was cracking. "JUST GET OUT OF HERE AND DON'T COME BACK!", In his rage he picked up another empty bottle and hurled it in Mandarys' direction, though it missed its mark and shattered in the street.

Mandarys flashed a malicious grin at him. "It's no sweat off my back! I've been kicked out of better places than this!"

"Alright, that's enough.", Severus seized his sister by the hand and dragged her away before they decided to full on jump her. She resisted at first, then after whatever Mandarys' version of better judgment was took over, she followed willingly.

Severus released her hand when they were a safe enough distance away from the boy who was now having a full blown, sobbing, screaming meltdown. "You really never know when to quit, do you?", he chided.

"Now who would I be if I was a quitter, dear brother?", she responded coolly.

"You'd be out of trouble, for one thing. You can't just go around pissing off everyone and have it not come back to you."

"You know, the pot called. It told me to tell you you're about as black as the shit they dump in the river.", She told him with a chuckle. No matter what he tried to tell her, she always had a comeback.

"Hold the phone now, I am nowhere near the same as you. For starters, I'm-"

"A boy.", She interrupted. "That would explain your ever so narrow worldview."

It would probably behoove him more to talk to the time and weather-worn brick and stone around him than try to actually get through to his sister, so he decided to change the subject. "So did you even bother showing up to school today?"

She smiled. "Education is certainly a noble pursuit, sweet Sev, but I find it to be so...unprofitable.", as she spoke the words she flashed the wadded-up bills in her hand and tucked them into her training bra.

He sighed. "So, out of curiosity, were you actually cheating?", he asked her, though he didn't see how it was possible. Mandarys couldn't even read, let alone count cards.

She dropped her eyes from his and looked straight ahead, as if searching for an answer. After a moment she turned back to him and smirked. "If you have to ask, you'll never know. Enjoy your dancing lesson, I'm off." With a wave and a grin she took off down the street as fast as her short, chubby legs could carry her, off to find some more trouble. Severus spent the rest of his commute to Seniore Jappepi's pondering what those words meant, but came up with nothing.

When he reached the entryway to the gymnastics studio he found it to be smaller than he expected. Before him was a simple, dark doorway tucked into a small strip of mostly abandoned shops on an out-of-the-way side street. In fact, the more he looked at the place the more things he noticed that were just...off. There were no trophies or medals or even photos on display as any place of this nature was bound to have, not even a photo of the owner himself. All there was to designate what the place was was a simple, plain-faced type sign above the door that read 'gymnastics.' From what he could see through the small windows was that there was little to no light inside, the place was dark as sin. For a brief moment his heart leaped in hope that the place was closed or had gone out of business, but when he tried the door, it was open.

He slowly stepped over the threshold into the darkness of the studio, which he discovered was only lit with a few candles spread about. From what he could make out, the floor was completely carpeted in plush mats of black and white that were arranged in a checkerboard pattern. There was equipment such as balance beams, bars, and rings, things you would typically find in any run of the mill gymnastics place, except for the fact that it was all but pitch black in here and appeared to be uninhabited.

"Hello!", he called out. "My name is Severus Snape. I'm here for my lesson. Is there anyone here?"

He was startled as about 8 feet in front of him, the shadows came to life.

What appeared to be moving darkness itself was, in fact, a man. He stood about 6-foot-2 and was wearing a long, flowing, black cloak that almost gave him the appearance of an overgrown bat. When he stepped into the candlelight Severus could see that he was in his mid to late 50s with well groomed yet rough features. He wore what was left of his dark brown hair slicked back, out of his olive-skinned face. His mouth was framed above by a pencil-thin mustache that was waxed to stand upward and curled, and below by a long, narrow beard. For a moment, Severus simply stood there in uncomfortable silence as the cloaked stranger eyed him up and down, sizing him up.

"Ah, yes.", he finally spoke. "You are the rude boy. Your mother told me.", He spoke in curt sentences that absolutely dripped Italian accent. "I am Seniore Giovanni Jappepi, and in this room..", he gestured an open-palmed hand to the space around him, "You will call me 'sir'.", he laid a threatening stress on the word 'sir' as he stroked his thin beard.

He was beginning to see why this place was so infrequently visited. "Um, yeah, listen Jappepi, here's the deal: I appreciate your business here and all, but, this is more of a mandatory thing for me, not so much a voluntary thing. I don't want to be here, and I'm sure you'd like to get back to...whatever it is you do. So, why don't you do us both a favor and call up my mother and tell her I was here, we did the whole tumbler thing, and then we both go our separate ways?"

He tried to put on his best negotiator face and flashed Seniore Jappepi a smile, but it was not returned. The tall man stared him down for another moment and then curiously folded his hand, leaving only his middle and index fingers protruding outward.

Severus felt it long before he saw it.

Seniore Jappepi, not jumped, but more so lifted off the ground and flew high into the air, doing an elegant combination of a corkscrew twist and flip, and when he came back down to earth Severus was on the ground, not breathing. Seniore Jappepi had jabbed his throat so hard with his fingers that at first Severus swore it was a bullet, yet he did not hear a gun. The blow crushed his windpipe inward and he struggled prone on his stomach for air on the cold floor.

Without so much as the sound of a footstep, the man was on him again, pinning him down on the mat with his knee. Just when a harrowing trickle of air began to seep into Severus' lungs, he seized a handful of his hair and brutally yanked his head upward, the position causing his throat to constrict again. The more frantically he struggled, the more pressure Seniore Jappepi would inflict on his back, but what else could he do? He was clearly at the mercy of a lunatic and thought for sure that this cold, dark chamber was going to become his grave if he didn't do something. Through his panic and agony he could hear Seniore Jappepi begin to speak.

"A rude boy presumes to tell a grown man what to do.", he stated as calmly as one would at a tea party. "This will not stand here. Also, I told you that you are to call me 'sir'."

_Sir..._It was the last word that echoed through Severus' mind as the candlelight blurred and dimmed and the darkness overcame him.

…...

Eileen Prince lay prone on the threadbare living room sofa nursing a headache and wishing her damn quaalude would kick in. The late afternoon sun beamed rays of light through the shaded windows, highlighting the unsightly layer of dust that coated almost everything. She intended to get at least some housework done before Tobias came home, but for now she way enjoying some Eileen-time to recollect her sanity. Each channel she flipped through on the television showed mindless program after mindless program. Nothing but dumb game shows, vapid soap operas, infomercials, and movies shot on shit-eo. No-substance Muggle nonsense, all of it. She wondered why they even had cable at all.

With a sigh, she turned to channel 4 and a half, in hopes that she could catch a bit of World Wide Wizard News. When the picture tuned in, a bright red BREAKING NEWS banner scrolling across the top of the screen instantly caught her attention. The live feed showed an RV on what looked like an African plain that had been absolutely ravaged by some kind of wild animals. The windows were shattered, deep gashes had been carved into its metal body by what looked like terribly huge claws, and from what she could see of the inside of it, dark crimson smears all but covered the floor.

The feed flashed back to the studio where a blonde anchorwoman turned to the camera with a solemn expression.

"For those just tuning in, today is a sobering day for the Wizarding World as tragedy has struck on the Serengeti. Renowned and beloved wildlife journalists Alexander and Rosella Dolohov were found dead in their trailer this morning by local authorities. The couple were in the process of filming a documentary on predators of the African plains. The whereabouts of their young child that was traveling with them is still unknown. We have correspondent Maxwell Madison reporting live on the scene. Back to you Madison."

The picture flashed back to a young, handsome reporter standing outside the absolutely savaged RV. "Thank you, Melanie. Well, as you can see behind me, it is an absolutely gruesome sight over here. Kenyan Conservationists have speculated that it may have been a gorilla troop that came upon the young family while they slept that are behind the vicious attack that took the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Dolohov. The only glimmer of hope that we can glean from this utter disaster is that their young son, Antonin Dolohov, is not amongst the dead, as there was no body found on the scene. We have Ministry of Magic authorities grid searching everything in a hundred-mile radius, but as of yet Antonin Dolohov remains miss-"

She was startled out of her trance by the phone ringing. Muting the television, she reached over to the coffee table and picked it up.

"Hello?", she breathed into the phone, finding her head in a pleasant state of swiminess from the pills.

She was met with a much more urgent tone. "H-Hello, Eileen?"

"Yes..."

"It's Alexis. I-I need to tell you something.", A voice on the edge of weeping quavered.

"Why sure, Alexis. We haven't spoken in a dog's age. What is it? You sound terrible..."

"Eileen, something terrible has happened.", She all but whispered. She could hear a man sobbing in the background.

"I know, I saw it on the news, it's awful."

"No, not that...", she trailed off.

"Then what?"

"It's our daughter.", Alexis could not hold back her tears any longer. "She's been...She's been..."

…...

_Now look at them yo-yos, that's the way you do it._

_You play the guitar on the MTV._

The streetlamps and the vague, dull light of the moon through the layers of smog that blanketed Spinner's End were shining by the time Mandarys decided to head home. She counted her money as she walked, the grand total coming to 53 pounds.

_T hat ain't workin', that's the way you do it._

_Money for nothing and your chicks for free._

_It would have been 80 if the dice game at the Pemberly boys hadn't gone so sour, _She lamented. Had she just quit while she was ahead she would have had nearly double in her pocket right now. _You really never know when to quit, do you?, _Her brother's voice echoed in her mind, to her annoyance. Besides, games of pure chance were not her thing. However, it was the only game the Pemberly boys would welcome her to.

_Now that ain't workin', that's the way you do it._

_Let me tell you, them guys ain't dumb._

Dalton's poker crew was the last crew in all of Cokeworth that she wasn't banned from and now she didn't know where to go. If she was going to continue running her game, she would have to find new players, make it more believable...lose more. But, if there was one thing Mandarys Snape could not abide, it was losing.

_Maybe get a blister on your little finger,_

_Maybe get a blister on your thumb._

She pulled the front of her overcoat over her nose and mouth as the air grew more bitter with the evening, and took a moment to collect her thoughts. Even if she did find a new crew, muggle brats around here were chumps and never had too much cash to play with in the first place. On her best day she only raked in about 150. No matter what, it would still only amount to pocket money, and she wanted so much more than that.

_We gotta install microwave ovens,  
>Custom kitchen deliveries.<br>We gotta move these refrigerators,_

_We gotta move these color TV's._

A new angle was needed. A different idea entirely. A way to change the game. It was then that her thoughts shifted back to the 'Sins of the Puppet Master.' The words in its pages had been tugging at her mind all day. Severus had been right, it was all bullshit conspiratorial pseudoscience. 

_Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it,  
>You play the guitar on the MTV.<br>That ain't workin' that's the way you do it.  
>Money for nothin' and your chicks for free.<br>Money for nothin' and chicks for free._

Yet those words had stuck with her like nothing else. Why? What was it? It made her feel emotions she could not quite put her finger on. There was something to the Puppet Master, and the more she thought about it, the more she discovered that there might just be a way for it to be..._used._ But how? She would just have to wait for Severus to read her more of the book.

_Easy easy money. _

_I want my, I want my, I want my MTV. _

_Money for nothing._

Humming along to the music blaring from her headphones, she took the porch steps two at a time. On the thick, intricate spiderwebs that surrounded the porch light, a brown recluse spider devoured a moth. When she stepped inside her senses were pleasantly assaulted by the salty fragrance of beef stew. After removing her jacket, headphones, and boots she made her way to the kitchen. To her surprise however, she only found Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumbshit at the dinner table. Mom was cackling like a hen over the phone and Severus was nowhere to be found.

"And where were you?", her father inquired over mouthfuls of meat.

"Up your ass and around the corner.", she told him causally, taking a generous helping of stew for herself.

Dad pounded the table with his fist. "I swear to Christ, girl, I will end you..." He growled at her over a trembling, pointed finger.

"Don't you two even start! Can't you see I'm on the phone!", Mom hollered from the living room.

Dad lowered his eyes and Mandarys savagely dug into the stew.

"So", Viserus spoke up, "Dinner seems to be unusually less brooding and creepy tonight. Where's Severus?"

Dad shrugged. "Dunno, he was s'pose to be home hours ago."

"I guess _gymnastics_ proved to be too much for him.", Viserus said with all the 5th grade swagger he could muster, chuckling at his own joke.

"You know, I'm sure Freud would have a lot to say about a dude who rides a pole around all day catching balls.", Mandarys raised an eyebrow at him.

"Of course you'd snub Quidditch. I'll bet if you even tried riding a broom your fat ass would snap it right in half."

"And I'll bet you enjoy riding around on that thing so much because it compensates for everything you don't have.", She smiled at him mockingly.

Before Viserus could reply with a half-assed comeback, Mom swiftly strode into the room, sitting down and opting for a cigarette instead of a meal.

"Alright everyone, I have some good news and some bad news.", she took a deep drag on her cigarette and brushed her fingers through her hair. "The good news is, I've finally managed to find people to rent the apartment upstairs to." Tobias tilted an eyebrow in her direction. "The bad news is, the Scanlon's-Toby you remember them don't you? I was in Slytherin house with them."

"Mmm.", he grunted.

"Well I just got off the phone with Alexis. Their daughter, Rita was murdered."

Dad raised his eyebrows and nodded. "Well, that's heavy."

…...

The air came to him as a teasing harrow at first as he remembered how to breathe. For a white-hot nerve frying moment he thought he had gone blind, until he spied the living shadow cloaking himself in the very darkness of this old, half-condemned strip mall.

"Hmm.", Seniore Jappepi remarked casually, examining his gloved hands. "You're a strong boy. Most would be out for a good 20 minutes or so after a blow like that, yet you awaken in 10. A rude boy, to be sure, but a strong one..." He trailed off, his assailant appraising him like a horse he was about to mate with his mare.

5 breaths in and Severus found the strength to stand through rage alone. "YOU!? What the Christ is wrong with you! I come here to learn gymnastics and you bloody wail on me like a rabid dog!"

"I believe it was you who was behaving like a rabid dog. Flailing about your arms in random directions, practically stumbling over your own big feet, leaving yourself wide open in about twelve different places...you move like a crippled ox." he droned on.

"You'll be the cripple when the cops come in here and I tell them that you beat on a kid, you wop psychopath!", Severus shouted in the most commanding voice he could muster up through his sore, throbbing throat. "I'm not letting you get away with this!" His eyes scrambled the room to try and catch a glimpse of anything resembling a phone. He froze in place like a fox as he spied a hair-sliver of light coming from a toll-booth sized room that must have served Jappepi as some kind of office. He closed the distance between himself and the door so quickly he couldn't have told you in a thousand years how he did it, his body simply did all the thinking. He tore the door open with such animalistic force the hinges nearly broke off, flooding the entire run-down gymnastics studio with fluorescent light. He lunged for the old, red rotary phone he spied sitting on the small desk area, wrapping his entire body around it as he rolled onto the desk.

When he regained sense of which way was up he grasped for the dial, fumbling at first as no one in the goddamned civilized world had these bricks of junk anymore. His eyes glanced defensively upward at Jappepi who was just...simply standing there, his tall, perfectly still, dark frame cutting through the light of the office as a stone cut through the sea. It was then Severus realized just how _old _the man was. His olive-skinned face was marred in several places by savage-looking scars. Between the scars, his frown lines cut deep, while his beard, mustache and hair were all dusted with gray. Shrouded in the darkness of his studio he could pass for 50, but the light revealed him to be well into his 60s.

The tall, Italian man simply stood in the light of the doorway unphased though, and it was _pissing_ him off. He had the upper-hand here. He'd call the cops and tell them some foreign and probably undocumented creep was beating on a kid and INS would haul him away screaming. He looked at him again before he did anything else, though, his dark, scarred features still cool as a cucumber. Was this so daily routine with this strange man? His carnal need to show him that he had given the business to the wrong kid today took precedent over his need to breathe. "You've really gone and done it now, you Guinea! Once I make this phone call they'll take you away!" He shouted authoritatively to Jappepi.

Without missing a beat, Seniore Jappepi chimed in "Do you always have other people handle your problems for you, rude boy?"

This man knew how to push Sev's buttons as easy as if he were wearing them on his sleeves in flashing neon lights. Severus had actually frozen with rage, staying glued to his spot, eyes wide, like a cornered black cat. Upon seeing his smug visage lurking in the doorway, Severus hurled the old-style rotary phone receiver straight at Japeppi's grinning face. The old man deftly cut through the air with the ease of a fish darting through the sea. He moved not only with the grace and lightness of shadow but the haste and accuracy of fluid.

Within the span of a breath he closed the distance between him and Severus, fully exposed in the fluorescent white light of the small office yet so quick he remained to be intangible. He circled Severus like the vulture his long, black cloak made him out to be. "So, that's all you have then, rude boy?" he softly inquired. "Flailing around like a little girl with a wasp under her dress and throwing the phone at me with all the deadly force of Jeremy Guthrie? Mama-mia, it's no wonder your mother thought you to ill-fit for Quidditch.", he spoke lazily as he pulled a pack of _Marlboros_ from the pocket of his cloak. Severus was so berserk with fury that for a moment the sentence did not register with him.

"What? What did you say?", Sev asked him, half heaving, half hissing. He found himself wiping his own spit from his mouth. He always had an unfortunate habit of spitting when he became unhinged. A trait that reminded him uncomfortably of his father.

"I said you throw like more of a bitch than the Royals.", Jappepi drawled casually over his cupped hands as he lit a cigarette.

"No. After that."

"That I suggested to your mother that she aught to opt to enroll you in some kind of Quidditch program instead, but she didn't think you were fit for it.", he smiled sadistically.

For once, Severus let the insult roll off of him. "You're a-"

"A Wizard?" Japeppi interjected. "What? You think you're the only Magic User in Spinner's End?"

Severus simply stood with his back to a filing cabinet, mouth open, head reeling.

"That's the second biggest problem with you, rude boy. You perceive yourself to be so high above everyone else. You walk through life on a high wire act, blindfolded...oblivious to just how easy you can be tripped up." With a move so smooth it was scarcely human he pulled a long, wooden stick from his cloak sleeve and clean swept it through Severus' ankles, sending him crashing to the floor, an ungraceful bundle of spider-like limbs flailing everywhere.

"The first problem of course, being how tragically uncoordinated you are.", Jappepi stood over him, appraising him like a Thrall being purchased over the black market.

Severus put out before him two hands that shook with rage. He laid them upon the ratty, brownish-green office carpet to steady himself and flew to his feet, tearing up bits of 70s carpet in his fingers as he did so. He turned to face Jappepi and looked him in his infuriatingly nonplussed eyes.

"What's your deal, old man?", Severus growled through panting breaths.

Jappepi smirked. "I bear you no ill will, truly. To me, you are nothing more than another worthless Spinner's End brat who has shown up to waste my time and patience. I doubt I'll even remember your face five minutes after you walk out my door for I have seen so many unremarkable, slack-jawed, limp-wristed, youth come in here. I will tell you this, though...after you leave here and cry to your mother or the police or whoever else you need to protect you because of your inability to do so yourself...I win. It's amusing, the way life works out. I will never think of you again the moment you leave here, but you will think of me. I know you will. A boy like you could never forget the face of a man who beat you."

Severus felt his blood turn to cold steel in his veins with incensed frustration. He knew it was true.

"There is another option here though.", he continued. "One that I think might ease your anger a bit. You can come back here tomorrow, and I can teach you how to use your body as a tool, as a weapon. I can teach you how to protect yourself as a man, and not some boy who needs to run to his mommy or the police like a frightened child. For a man who cannot even put up a half-decent fight, let alone protect himself and what he stands for is no man at all."

They simply looked each other in the eyes a moment, the young, round, onyx to the aged and hardened dark brown, until Severus drew in a deep breath and spoke.

"How is it that you know how to fight like that? You're...not like other people around here."

"Neither are you, rude boy."

"What do you mean?"

"You remind me of a man that I once knew. I see his face whenever I look at you.", He remarked with a tone of bemused, almost wistful nostalgia.

"Who?"

"It would only be wasted words if I never saw you again. The man I once knew would never turn down a fight, nor the opportunity to learn something knew.", he stated plainly.

"Then...", Severus knew he had been defeated once again, first physically and now psychologically, but still, this strange man, this style of fighting that he had never seen before, this man who he was reminded of, he knew he had stumbled upon a rabbit hole, and he longed to see how deep it went. I was decided. "Then I'll come back here tomorrow then."

Jappepi smiled slyly. "I knew you weren't just another piece of Spinner's End trash, Severus Prince."

Severus misheard the last part of his sentence. "What was that?"

"Nothing. Now go, it's late and I should be closed by now."

With that, Severus gathered his things and headed for the door. "I'll see you at 4 tomorrow then...sir." He grimaced, as if the word had physically left a bad aftertaste in his mouth, and then headed into the dark, damp chill of the evening, closing the door behind him.

…...

As Giovanni Jappepi set the magical locks upon the door to his studio, the only damn things that managed to keep the crack addicts from looting the place, he found himself doing something he never did: Thinking about one of his students after they left. For returning students were so far and few between that all their faces seemed to have melded into one in his mind. Yet the tall, skinny, onyx-eyed, loud-mouthed boy seemed to already be etched inside his memory, and he would not leave.

_Is this whelp of some relation to you, old friend?_ He thought to himself. _And how in Merlin's name did he get washed up into cesspool like this?_ His mind was spinning with questions that he would have to leave to his own imagination, for circumstances had taken him out of contact with that old friend of his so many years ago. _But it was as if I saw you stand before me writ small tonight..._

As he looked up to greet the sky he witnessed another seeming miracle. The stars were out tonight. It was ever a rare night that the dank cloud of toxic pollution hanging perpetually over the town parted to reveal the stars above. Yet there they were, lighting up a sky of crystal clear obsidian. When he walked the starlit path leading to his apartment a voice in the back of his head, one that he only listened to when he was feeling at his utmost superstitious would not shut up, repeating the same message to him over and over: Something's starting. Something's starting. Something's starting. What it was, he did not know, but while he reflected over the events of this strange night, a feeling in his gut told him it was something big. 


End file.
